


then kiss me once again

by unicornpoe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, 30 Day OTP Challenge, Angst, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I'm recliaming "it's been a long long time" because it belonged to us first and WE DESERVE IT, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes, Rating May Change, Shrunkyclunks, Soft Bucky, Soft Steve, Stucky - Freeform, WE GONNA DO OUR BEST, and I love crushing those dreams, canon is nothing more than the dreams of bigoted old white men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-03-30 22:19:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 38,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19036726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/pseuds/unicornpoe
Summary: 30 days of Stucky fics based onthis30-Day OTP Challenge.Each chapter is a stand-alone story; some are canon-compliant, and some are AUs.Enjoy a month's worth of fics about two deeply in love 100 year old men!***Kiss me once then kiss me twice/then kiss me once again/it's been a long, long time





	1. Day One: Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Day One, Meeting: The first time your OTP met. Introduced through a mutual friend? An accident?
> 
> Title taken from “It’s Been A Long, Long Time” by Jule Styne and Cammy Cahn.

**** The first time Steve sees him, it’s raining outside, and there’s water leaking in around the seam of the ceiling and the wall. They are in the laundry room. The laundry room is in the  _ basement.  _

Maybe Steve should have taken Tony up on that offer to live in his big ugly tower.

The man is bent over one of the clunky washers, apparently sorting through his basket of laundry even though every article of clothing Steve can see from this angle is black. He’s built, Steve can tell that much from back here—not as built as Steve, of course, but then it’s unlikely that this man got himself injected with a genetically modifying serum in the 1940s. So. That makes sense.

He’s also got a great ass. Really, just. Fabulous. Nice shoulders, too, firmly muscled in a way that’s just this side of bulky, and right smack dab in the middle of being hot. Even though he’s wearing a pair of fleece pajama bottoms with little black cats on them and a ripped up t-shirt and… house slippers? Steve is finding it difficult to stop staring.

The man slams the washer shut and, whistling softly to himself, turns around to face Steve, empty laundry basket tucked under one arm. His  _ only _ arm, Steve notes with some surprise; he had been standing in such a way that it looked like he was leaning over his left arm, but now Steve can see that there’s just nothing there, nothing beyond his empty shirt sleeve.

He starts when he sees Steve, stopping from smacking right into his chest by only a few inches, and his eyes blink open wide. They are a clear, tundra-like blue.

Panicking, because it was totally, completely, 100% clear that Steve was just checking this fella’s ass out, Steve sort of gapes a little and then points above the man to the leaking ceiling.

The man turns his head. His hair is on the longer side, about chin-length, and dark, dark brown; it swishes when he moves, and Steve thinks that if he had a bit less self-control, he would just reach out and touch.

“Fuck,” says the man, shoulders drooping as he spies the water seeping into the room. He turns back to Steve, pink lips pushed down into a frown, and Steve can see the moment it happens, really: it’s very obvious and very, very expected, and still his heart sinks down to the soles of his feet as this man’s eyes go even wider and his mouth drops open. “ _ Fuck,”  _ says the man, with feeling. He points at Steve’s face, forgets he’s holding a basket, says “FUCK” again as it falls out of his hold, and then, when Steve catches the descending basket, murmurs “ _ Fuck  _ me what the  _ fuck _ ,” and sits down there in the floor.

“Um,” says Steve.

“You,” says the man, still pointing at Steve. He’s staring up at him now, chin tipped back, everything about his expression comically wide. He’s in slightly better light now, which means he is  _ even more attractive.  _ There’s a five o’clock shadow thing going on that Steve is highly into, and he even finds the shadows under his eyes nice-looking.

“Yes,” says Steve, hoping to nip that sentence in the bud. “I am—”

“Goddamn fucking—”

“Captain—”

“America.”

“Steve Rogers,” Steve finishes, and then, shifting Bucky’s laundry basket to his left hip rather than his right, takes Bucky’s outstretched hand in his and shakes it. Bucky’s eyebrows lift at this; his gape slides into something slightly more like a grin, but still stunned. “At your service.”

“Bucky Barnes,” says Bucky Barnes. Bucky’s hand is still in Steve’s, although they’ve stopped shaking at this point, so now they’re kind of just… just holding hands, really, arms stretched awkwardly between them. Steve is blushing scarlet, he’s sure; but he doesn’t really know what to do in this situation. Nothing, from the moment he walked into the laundry room of his new apartment building, has gone how he expected it to go.

“Nice to meet you,” says Steve. Bucky’s grip is strong. Nice. “Do you need a hand?”

Bucky stares at him flatly, and Steve stares back, confused—and then it hits him, and he gasps and jerks out of Bucky’s grasp and wants to  _ die.  _ “ _ Fuck,”  _ he says, taking a page out of Bucky’s book and simply collapsing right there where he stands, legs folding up underneath of him like popsicle sticks. He cannot believe—he—he—he is  _ so stupid.  _ “Mr. Barnes, I am so sorry, shit, I didn’t mean…”

But Bucky is laughing at him. Head thrown back, eyes crinkled shut in a frankly adorable way,  _ existing  _ hand pressed right over his ripped t-shirt over his heart. He doesn’t… he doesn’t  _ look _ angry. Or worse, hurt. But  _ still. _

“Oh my god,” says Steve, burying his burning face in both hands and wishing that that little trickle of leaking rain would turn into a flood and he could just drown and not have to deal with this situation ever again ever. “Mr—”

“Ok ok ok so first of all, pal, please stop calling me Mr. Barnes, it’s freaking me the hell out,” Bucky interrupts, still slightly breathless from laughter. He rests his hand on Steve’s knee as he speaks, and Steve’s head snaps up quickly. Bucky is smiling at him, almost smirking, and suddenly the flush coursing across Steve’s skin is there out of much more than just sheer mortification. “Second of all, please stop apologizing, I made Captain America say ‘fuck’ which is basically the best thing Thirteen-Year-Old-Bucky could possibly imagine, so you’ve satisfied a fervent wish of my childhood, you’ve done me a  _ favor. _ ”

Steve says something that sounds like “Hnng.”

“Also,” Bucky adds, and he leans closer like he’s going to tell Steve a secret, so Steve leans in, too, drawn by his warmth. The hand on Steve’s knee slides up a little, thumb stroking at the seam of Steve’s jeans, fingers pressing lightly into the meat of his thigh. “I make that joke, like, all the time to myself, so it was really great to actually hear it spoken by a living human. It just helped convince me that it’s hilarious. Thanks for that.”

“You’re welcome,” says Steve, because he’s an awkward idiot who doesn’t know how to function in front of gorgeous men that be wants to 1. apologize to and then 2. shove against the nearest wall and kiss.

Bucky laughs again, less vehemently this time, and Steve can feel himself smiling in response, even though he still feels awful. Bucky’s laugh is infectious. Bucky’s smile is infectious. Bucky is still touching Steve’s thigh, and Steve is letting him.

“So, Captain America—”

“Steve,” he interrupts, voice a little too loud. He clears his throat, tries again. “Just call me Steve.”

Bucky’s smile is a slow, pretty slide. He nods, looking up at Steve through his lashes. “So, Steve,” he says, tone low. “What brings you to this part of town? Are there aliens infesting my apartment? Robots from hell? I sorta feel like I should’ve been notified that an Avenger was gonna make an appearance today.” He grins. “I would’ve brushed my hair.”

“I think your hair looks nice,” Steve says, awkward and jumbled and all in a rush. “Just. Just like it is.”

Their eyes catch. Behind Bucky, the washing machine shakes, and the rain drips. Bucky’s hand presses down, just a little bit.

“Thank you,” he says.

Steve lets his smile widen. He doesn’t miss the way Bucky’s eyes dart down to his mouth, then back up to his eyes—quick, like he thinks Steve won’t notice.

“There’s no emergency,” Steve assures him. He folds his hands together and rests them in his lap. “I live here.”

Bucky looks surprised, but only distractedly so. It appears that he has other things on his mind; Steve thinks he knows what they are. Steve hopes he knows what they are.

“Well, howdy, neighbor,” Bucky drawls.

Steve laughs. It feels nice to do that; it feels nice, here in this dank basement, to laugh with this beautiful man he just met.

“Howdy,” he says awkwardly, and decides to practice a move that Clint had laughingly taught him: double finger guns.

This gets a favorable reaction out of Bucky. He laughs again, which, well, Steve is learning that he loves when Bucky does that, and doesn’t take his eyes away from Steve’s face. “I can’t believe my current situation,” he says, after his laughter has died down a little.

“Oh?” Steve says. He feels a little bit giddy, a little bit daring, lighter than he has in a while; it’s rare that he meets someone that he can just laugh with, without the fate of the world hanging over his head. It’s addictively lovely.

“No, not at all.” Bucky shakes his head, pulling a face, but smiles again in a flicker of a second. “If you’d of told me this morning that by tonight I’d be sitting on the basement floor in my oldest pajamas flirting with Steve Rogers, I would have called you insane.”

Steve stares at him.

“That is,” Bucky says, brow furrowing a bit. “If he  _ wants _ me to be…”

He goes to pull his hand back; Steve traps it with his own broad palm, pinning Bucky in place before he can move away.

“Yes,” Steve says, liking the way Bucky’s lips curve up, liking even more the way he turns his palm until it’s facing Steve’s, and curls their fingers together. “He wants you to be. I want you to be.”

“Good,” murmurs Bucky, eyes on their linked hands. He lifts those eyes to Steve. “Good.”


	2. Day 2: Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: Realization. The first time a member of your OTP (or both members!) realized they had feelings for the other. 
> 
> TW: the vaguest allusions to depression, internalized homophobia, and idealized death. 
> 
> ***
> 
> When Bucky tells him, he doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t frown. 
> 
> Steve steps forward. He frames Bucky’s face with his too-big hands, brings him close until their foreheads rest together, and Bucky can see every fleck of color in his eyes. 
> 
> “I’ll come with you,” Steve says.

There’s a chill in the air. 

Bucky heads home quickly from work, his head down, his hands in his pockets, his jacket collar turned up against the pervasive cold. There’s a light mist hovering around every corner, leftover from the storm that had passed through Brooklyn earlier that afternoon; he’s careful to avoid puddles, as his shoes are getting a hole in the sole and they can’t afford to get him new ones—not if they wanna eat this week. Which they do. 

Bucky hopes Steve is back from that art class he’s teaching by now, safe and dry and as warm as can be in their shitty apartment. He can’t be out in this kind of weather. There’d been a cough rattling around in Steve’s chest this morning, Bucky is sure of it, and the last thing he wants is for it to sink deeper into Steve’s paper-thin lungs, to turn into shaking and chills and a fever.

He moves a bit faster. Doesn’t matter that Steve’s class let out almost a full two hours before Bucky even gets off work—Steve isn’t much one for socializing, but he sure will pick a fight with you if you stand around looking at him too long, and it wouldn’t be the first time Bucky had gotten home to an empty apartment and had to spend the rest of the night looking in alleyways until he found his wayward friend.

Bloody and bruised and spitting, snarling mad. Alive, though.

Bucky figures he can’t be blamed for not wanting to put his poor heart through all that again.

Rounding the corner of their street, he glances up and is relieved to see that their apartment light is on, casting a square of cheerful yellow light onto the sidewalk below. Almost unconsciously, he smiles wide, suddenly and powerfully warm with the idea of what waits for him in their little set of rooms.

Steve. Steve, jacket off, suspenders hanging off his shoulders, bare feet curled up under him on their threadbare couch. A sketchpad in his long-fingered hands. Bucky’s dinner, kept warm on the stovetop. The lamp clicked on.

Bucky whistles as he takes the set of three steps up to their door, cheerful and eager and spent. He checks the mailbox and—yep, Steve had forgotten it again, no surprise there—sorts through the scant letters as he climbs the first floor stairwell.

He stops dead when he sees one with his name on it.

He knows what it is before he even opens it. He knows what it is when he sees the slant of spiked cursive scrawled across the front, when he feels the heft of the envelope and enfolded papers in his hands. He knows what it is, and he knows what it is, and he opens it and he reads it and he sits there, right in the middle of the stairwell, legs like water.

James Buchanan Barnes. Army.

Slowly, slowly, Bucky stands up. His hands don’t shake—they never do; he thinks, distantly, that this will serve him well in the future—but his stomach has tied itself in knots, and he feels sick. 

He puts the letter back inside the envelope and folds it up into quarters, smaller than the shape it was in when he opened it. This, he tucks deep in the inside of his pocket of his jacket next to his pack of cigarettes, where he knows Steve won’t check. Then he stands, hauling himself up with the rickety rail, and slowly makes his way home.

It’s like he imagined it, mostly. Steve is curled up on their couch, but he’s wearing one of Bucky’s much-too-big shirts and his own thick woolen socks; the shirt isn’t buttoned up all the way and it hangs off of one of Steve’s shoulders, showing the sharply defined edge of one collar bone, the stark lines of shadow beneath them. He’s sketching something with his elegant hands, face intent—furrow between his eyebrows, semi-permanent frown in place. His long, pretty eyelashes cast heavy shadows on top of his high cheekbones. His bangs hang down across his forehead, soft and shiny. The lamplight turns him gold.

He looks too perfect to touch, thinks Bucky for the millionth time. He looks like Bucky could move the wrong way, and Steve would disappear into a puff of smoke.

Bucky can’t leave him.

The door swings shut behind Bucky and Steve looks up at him, blinking his huge blue eyes like he’s coming out of a daze. The frown fades away when he looks at Bucky, his brow goes clear. Bucky wonders if it’s possible to shake apart from the inside out.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve says, smiling his enigmatic half-smile. “Dinner’s on the stove.”

Bucky’s throat is as dry as sand, feels like it’s full of nails every time he tries to swallow, feels—

“Buck?”

He’s drifted away in those seconds, gone some place into his head that looked like panic and felt like endings. He snaps his gaze to Steve. Steve. Steve.

“You look like the sun,” he says. Blurts, really. It’s the first thing that had sung through his mind after looking back up at Steve; now, his eyes are caught on the play of lamplight over the delicate turn of Steve’s bony wrists, sticking out from the rolled up cuffs of Bucky’s shirt. He  _ does  _ look like the sun.

Steve gives Bucky that look. The one that says he’s trying not to smile, holding it in with the corners of his eyes until they crinkle a little bit. He’s so, so pale, pale like winter, but Bucky thinks he’d blush if his poor circulation would let him.

“Yeah, and you look like an idiot,” Steve says, but there’s something tightly fond in his tone that Bucky wants to sink into. “Lurking there in the doorway like you’re gonna come suck my blood out.”

“You’ve been readin’ too many of those vampire books, Stevie,” Bucky says, even though they both know where Steve had first heard those stories: sick in bed, while Bucky did everything he could to keep him from sinking down into that blackness that hides in his mind sometimes. Reading aloud, Bucky has discovered over long years of being Steve’s friend, helps.

But Bucky comes closer. ‘Course he does. Steps into the room and drapes his jacket over the chair, gives Steve something as close to a smile as he can manage on his way to the kitchen.

He can’t eat a thing.

***

It’s still cold, so Bucky doesn’t even think before turning on his side and sliding his arm over Steve’s tiny waist, pulling him back until he’s flush up against Bucky’s chest, small and safe and held. His head fits perfectly beneath Bucky’s chin, and his legs (socks still on) tangle with Bucky’s in just the comfortable way they always have.

Steve smells good. Like soap, and the charcoal he draws with, and home.

Steve feels so breakable. Like one tight squeeze would shatter him.

They lie there in the quiet, and Bucky feels like he can’t quite get a full breath of air in his lungs, no matter how long he inhales. He stares at the top of Steve’s head, the soft blond hairs tickling his chin and lips, the cowlick that Steve can never get smoothed down, no matter how much pomade he uses. He stares, and he thinks about the rightness of Steve there in his arms, they way they fit together: a key in a lock, two cogs whirring together.

“Bucky?” Steve’s voice is so quiet that it would be easy for Bucky to ignore it. It would be easy for him to feign sleep, and even though Steve wouldn’t believe him, Bucky knows he probably wouldn’t press.

Bucky closes his eyes. Bucky says, “Yeah?”

Another lapse of silence. Bucky would think that Steve were asleep, if not for the way his whole body feels unbearably alert in Bucky’s arms, thrumming with an energy like the plucked string of a violin.

“Are you alright?”

When Bucky was fourteen and Steve was thirteen, the Barnes clan went to Indiana to visit family. They were gone for the better part of a month, not long enough to write and receive letters, but way too long for Steve and Bucky to be apart. Bucky had felt Steve’s absence like an empty spot in his chest, deep and wide and ringing. He ached a little bit by the time they were on their way back to New York, and he ached a little bit more when he saw Steve again, and the whole time they’d been gone he had missed him so much that he almost couldn’t breathe.

Bucky thinks about the letter, stowed in his jacket pocket. It’s a letter that will take him away. It’s a letter that’s taking him to a war zone, to a fight that he knows in his bones he won’t come home from. It’s a letter taking Bucky to a place where Steve—precious, perfect Steve, bullheaded, impulsive Steve, beautiful and wonderful and irreplaceable and idealistic Steve—absolutely must not follow.

Eyes tightly closed, Bucky sneaks his hand under the collar of Steve’s shirt, palm pressed against the hot skin shielding Steve’s heart. The organ beats unsteadily. Bucky thinks that he loves him.

“Go to sleep, pal,” he whispers, and Steve covers Bucky’s hand with his own. They don’t talk again.

***

When Bucky tells him, he doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t frown.

Steve steps forward. He frames Bucky’s face with his too-big hands, brings him close until their foreheads rest together, and Bucky can see every fleck of color in his eyes.

“I’ll come with you,” Steve says.

Bucky loves him. Bucky loves him. It’s good that he is going to war, going to die, because it’s wrong, but god, Bucky loves him.

“Stevie.”

“Maybe not soon,” Steve says, voice a little rough. He traces his thumbs over the tops of Bucky’s cheeks, and he smiles, and it looks like a promise, and Bucky is so fucking scared. “And maybe not the way you expect. But I’ll follow you. I’ll find you. I’ll be there.

“You and me,” whispers Steve. He moves his hands from Bucky’s cheeks to his shoulders, and Bucky moves forward against him, holds him close.  _ One last time, _ he thinks, and Steve says, “Til the end of the line.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISE FLUFF NEXT TIME. I PROMISE.


	3. Day 3: The Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3, The Reveal: When your OTP confessed their feelings. Or were their feelings originally a secret until someone else intervened?
> 
> ***
> 
> Steve rolls down his window and then gives up and opens his door, and they’re standing face-to-face for the first time in months, face-to-face in a gas station in the midwest, and Bucky is holding a notebook in his flesh hand, a notebook all lined in colorful little tabs, and Steve wants to reach out and touch him and— 
> 
> “Jesus, Rogers, breathe before you pass the fuck out,” Bucky says with a scowl, and Steve laughs like something has broken open inside of him, laughs and laughs and laughs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PROMISED FLUFF, AND SO IT SHALL BE

Steve washes up on the banks of the Potomac, his gut full of bullets, his eye swollen shut. Nobody knows how he made it out of the river alive.

Steve knows.

***

“I’m gonna find him.”

Sam doesn’t look at Steve, at first. He’s standing on the other side of Steve’s recently-vacated hospital bed, folding a pair of Steve’s sweatpants and fitting them neatly inside a backpack that Steve doesn’t recognize.

Steve watches Sam act like he didn’t hear. He thinks of the kindness of this new friend as he bends to tie his shoes, taking care of him when Steve had done nothing to deserve that. He thinks of Bucky, wild-eyed and breathing hard, poised to kill him, but pausing. Remembering.

After a moment, Sam looks at Steve, and his smile is warm and almost enough for Steve not to notice the worry hiding in his eyes. Sam is a good man.

“When do we leave?”

***

They’ve got no real plan. Steve—dressed in civilian clothes because this is his decision, this is Steve Rogers, Brooklyn-bred, a kid who will fight and fight and fight for what he believes in, and has nothing to do with Captain America at all—takes down HYDRA bases with his fists and his legs and his gnashing teeth, a gun slung across his back that he barely ever fires. Sam has his six. Sam flies in, does what needs to be done swiftly and with considerably less emotion, and flies out.

Over, and over, and over again. They leave a trail of destruction in their wake, and it doesn’t fix things, but it helps. It doesn’t get Bucky back, but it helps.

***

A morning, bright with mid-winter sun. Cold. Steve doesn’t remember where they are.

There are rows of gleaming cars lined up at the gas station Sam pulls into, and Steve, eyes unfocused, stares at them as Sam runs inside for a coffee. As such, it takes him a moment to recognize the bright flash of silver in his periphery.

When he does, it’s all he can see.

Bucky moves. He stands in front of Steve’s window, in a tattered sweatshirt and jacket and a beat up baseball cap, his metal hand clenched loosely by his thigh. His hair is unkempt, and dirty. He’s got a beard coming in, just a shadow really, clinging to the contours of his jaw, the divot in his chin, framing his bottom lip.

His eyes. God, his eyes.

Steve rolls down his window and then gives up and opens his door, and they’re standing face-to-face for the first time in months, face-to-face in a gas station in the midwest, and Bucky is holding a notebook in his flesh hand, a notebook all lined in colorful little tabs, and Steve wants to reach out and touch him and—

“Jesus, Rogers, breathe before you pass the fuck out,” Bucky says with a scowl, and Steve laughs like something has broken open inside of him, laughs and laughs and laughs.

***

“Can you move your seat up?”

Sam doesn’t trust Bucky, and Steve doesn’t blame him—because Sam didn’t know him before, Sam didn’t know him when he was starry-eyed and movie star perfect, a dashing smile and an innocence in him that hadn’t been broken yet. Sam knows the Winter Soldier.

Blood and bullets and eyes like black ice.

Staring straight ahead, Sam says “No.”

Steve says, under his breath, “Sam.”

Sam says, “I’m letting your stabby, scary boyfriend ride in my car. Please do not give me your I’m Disappointed In You face while I’m letting your stabby, scary boyfriend ride in my car.”

Bucky says, “Ha ha.”

Steve meets Bucky’s eyes in the mirror, helpless with the feeling in his chest, the feeling like his heart is going to burst any second. Bucky’s face has lost the chilling blankness of the Winter Soldier’s expression, Bucky’s eyes have some of their spirit back, but he still only shows about a quarter of the emotions he has on the outside.

That’s fine. That’s wonderful. That’s perfectly great. Steve would rather have Bucky here, safe, where he can keep an eye on him and watch him be a blank slate, than literally anywhere where Steve isn’t.

“I don’t make that face,” Steve says, because he knows it’ll get a rise out of both of them, and he needs something like that, he needs to hear them teasing him and talking to him, he needs. He needs.

“You’re delusional,” says Sam, and Bucky says, “Steve you fuckin’ idiot,” at the exact same time, and Steve smiles.

***

They stop at a rundown diner for food, crowding into the corner table. Bucky, shoulders held in a way that’s intimidating enough for the patrons and staff to give him a very wide berth, circles the side of the booth and slides into the corner-most seat, his back to the wall, his eyes on the exit. Sam sits across from him.  

Steve makes to slide in next to Bucky, but Bucky cuts his gaze to Steve, something displeased and upset in the corners of his eyes, and points at the end of the table.

“Could you,” he rasps, and clearly it’s himself he’s upset with. Steve’s heart cracks at the very slight tremor in Bucky’s right hand. “There. Please.”

“Of course, Buck,” says Steve, smiling like he doesn’t ache for Bucky down to his core, and pulls a chair around to the head of the table.

They order a truly massive amount of food. “Supersoldiers,” Sam murmurs under his breath as he rolls his eyes, in the exact same tone of voice one would use to say, “Kids these days,” or “please commiserate with me over the ridiculousness of this situation.” Steve, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his waiting mouth, flips him off elegantly.

Bucky watches all of this carefully. He eats almost as much as Steve, but he’s fast about it, scarfing it down almost as soon as the plates hit the table, as if he’s scared it’s the last chance he’ll get to eat for a while, or somebody might take it away from him unexpectedly. Steve wants to tell him that none of that will happen; that he’s gonna get food regularly, and absolutely nobody is ever going to take it away from him. But he thinks now might be a bit too soon.

That evening, they get a motel room to share, Sam and Steve splitting the cost evenly. They have very little luggage—well. Very little luggage that isn’t weapons, or confiscated HYDRA information—and Bucky has nothing but the notebook in his hands and the backpack he’s wearing.

The woman at the front desk looks at them, and her gaze gets caught on the dirty patches on Bucky’s jacket, the rips in his jeans, so Steve steps in front of him and shoots her a glare so fierce that she makes an odd cheaping noise and looks away, face scarlet. Sam laughs quietly under his breath, eyes on Steve. Bucky doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’ll take the couch,” says Steve, crossing to it as Sam unlocks their door, and tossing his bag full of clothes and toiletries down upon it. He’s absolutely fucking exhausted, but he knows he won’t sleep. Not with Bucky so near, and the lingering fear in the back of Steve’s mind that he’ll get up and leave in the middle of the night.

“You sure?” asks Sam, but he’s casting longing glances at one of the double beds in the room, so Steve just waves him towards it with a weary smile, and sits down to unlace his boots.

“You can have the other one, Buck,” Steve says, sliding his feet free and groaning as he leans back against the uncomfortable couch cushions. “Make yourself at—”

He stops. Bucky is standing directly in front of him, his shoes and jacket off, hands empty. He’s getting ready to sit down next to Steve. Sit down  _ close.   _

Across the room, Sam is looking infinitely amused.

“Oh,” says Bucky, and he sounds so disappointed in himself. His shoulders go up, he stares at the floor, he backs away from Steve. He looks so small. “I’m sorry. I thought. I.”

“Bucky,” says Steve, standing up. They’re close, close, almost close enough to touch. Steve doesn’t dare. “Don’t apologize. It’s ok. What did you think?”

Bucky swallows, eyes still cast down. “I remembered it all wrong,” he says, voice quiet and hoarse. “I thought. I thought that you and I…” he looks up at Steve now, and lifts his left hand, pointing at the couch. “I remember us sleeping in the same bed? I thought. I’m wrong. I’m sorry.”

Steve takes a deep breath, and it catches in the middle, and it comes out in a noise that sounds a little like a sob. “You didn’t remember wrong, Bucky,” he says, and god, he fucking melts at the way Bucky’s face lights up with those words, he just. God. “We used to. I just didn’t know if you’d want me that close tonight.”

“Stevie,” Bucky says, looking almost admonishing, and this noise that comes out of Steve can’t be considered anything  _ but _ a sob, because Bucky hasn’t called him that in seventy goddamn years. “I  _ always  _ do.”

He’s not crying, not really, the tears are sort of just… just hovering in the corners of his eyes.

“Stop that,” Bucky says softly, and he brings his hand up and wipes away one of the tears that had escaped. “Don’t do that. You’re gonna have an asthma attack.”

Steve laughs. It’s a watery, unattractive sound. “Can’t anymore. Serum fixed that up, Buck.”

“Hm,” says Bucky. He’s studying Steve like he’s a painting worth looking at, letting his eyes roam over every inch of Steve’s face. His hand cups the back of Steve’s neck, and Steve shuffles a tiny bit closer to him, letting one hand drift up and rest in the shallow dip of Bucky’s waist.

“I remembered something else,” Bucky says abruptly. “And you have to tell me if I’m wrong.”

“Ok, pal.”

“I remembered that you love me.”

_ Oh _ , Steve thinks.  _ Oh oh oh oh. _

“No, Bucky,” he whispers, and his heart pounds. “You’re not wrong.”

“I used to kiss you, didn’t I?” Bucky asks, and he starts to smile a bit as he does, and it’s the first smile that Steve can remember Bucky giving him since he fell. Hell, since before then. Since Steve found him on an examination table, feverish and full of drugs.

Steve can’t speak. He nods, holding onto Bucky with both hands now, and feels how strong Bucky is beneath his layers of sweatshirt and skin. All of that softness of Bucky before the war is gone, every last inch eaten up by a life Steve would give anything to go back in time and save him from.

Steve nods. Nods, nods, nods. Nods, and Bucky says, “I love you, too,” and kisses him.

Soft. Slow. Close. Warm.  _ Home. _

“Guys,” says Sam, and he sounds truly apologetic, but also like he would rather be anywhere else. “Could you maybe do that in the bathroom or something?”

“Do we have to keep him?” Bucky murmurs against Steve’s lips, letting Steve pull him close.

“He helped me find you,” Steve says.

“I fucking found you all on my own,” Bucky mutters, and Steve kisses him and kisses, and Sam groans loudly, and outside the window, snow falls.


	4. Day 4: First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve Rogers: Hi! I couldn’t help but notice the dog in your profile pic. They’re beautiful! Do you mind me asking what the breed is?
> 
> Bucky stares down at the message, momentarily stunned—and then he laughs out loud. This is not at all how he thought this app would work, this is not at all the sort of messages he expected having to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4, First Date: Your OTP’s first date. Where’d they go? Did the date go well or go horribly?
> 
> I... very loosely followed the prompt. You're welcome.

“If you download Tinder I won’t ask you about your love life for a solid month.”   
  
Bucky contemplates Natasha over the edge of his coffee cup, considering. This is… not a bad deal. She’s constantly on his ass about who he’s dating, crushing on, talking to, having sex with, etc. It’s incredibly invasive and she incredibly does not care, so having thirty whole days of respite from her constant badgering sounds like something Bucky would trade a whole lot more for. 

It’s suspiciously nice. He is not naive enough to believe that there isn’t a catch.

“And if you haven’t gone on at least one date by the time that month is up, then I’m setting you up with Tony from work, and I don’t care that you hate him.”

Oh shit. Oh no. There it is. Tony is, Bucky’s sure, a great guy with an awesome heart yadda yadda yadda,  _ however _ he talks so. fucking. much. Bucky feels a murderous urge whenever they’re in the same room. He cannot fathom a date between them going anything but disastrously.

“Just one?”

Natasha smiles. She’s got the sort of smile that will either make you fall in love with her, or fear for your life, or both. Thank god nearly ten years of friendship have served to build up Bucky’s immunity to this particular expression. 

“Just one, James.” She takes a drink, keeping her eyes on him the whole time. He feels a bit like a fly caught in a spider’s web. “Easy, right?”

He sighs.

He lets her set up his profile.

***

Bucky forgets about this deal for a solid three days. Things are busy at work—he’s an interior designer, and most of his clients are fussy people with bad taste and bottomless wallets, so it takes a lot of subtle conversational maneuvering on his part to finagle his jobs into something both artistically satisfying and fiscally fruitful—and each night when he gets home, all he wants to do is crash on his couch with his dog, Rufus, and a pizza.

Then, on day four, his phone pings with a notification.

A Tinder notification.

Nat must have swiped on some people, he supposes, because he certainly didn’t. Rolling his eyes, Bucky opens the message.

**Steve Rogers:** Hi! I couldn’t help but notice the dog in your profile pic. They’re beautiful! Do you mind me asking what the breed is?

Bucky stares down at the message, momentarily stunned—and then he laughs out loud. This is not at all how he thought this app would work, this is not at all the sort of messages he expected having to read.

He navigates to Steve Rogers’ profile, and has to grudgingly admit that Natasha has good taste. Steve is… well. He’s hot. The first picture is of him standing in what looks like an art gallery, a long, loose cardigan pushed up to his elbows, dark skinny jeans accentuating the slightness of of his frame, tattoos winding up his wrists, his forearms, disappearing under his sleeves. A pair of dark-rimmed glasses rest on his slightly crooked nose. His smile is small, and dazzling. His hair is done in a fashionable undercut, blond on top, slightly darker on the bottom. He sort of looks like a hipster, but Bucky’s brain is easily ignoring that fact, and zeroing into the fact that Bucky really wants to kiss him.

In the second picture, Steve is standing beside a man in a t-shirt that says  FALCON HANGLIDING,  and laughing, head thrown back, eyes squeezed nearly shut. The other man has his arm around Steve, and he nearly dwarfs him. Their happiness is almost palpable through Bucky’s cracked iphone screen.

He’s an artist, says Steve’s bio, Brooklyn-based. Bucky wonders how near Steve lives.

Swallowing, Bucky clicks back to his inbox. He reads, and then rereads, Steve’s message. It’s ironic, he thinks, that the first message he revieces on here comes from someone he would actually be interested in dating, when instead that person just wants to know about his dog. Oh, well.

**Bucky Barnes:** Portuguese Water Dog. Thanks! I’m fond of him lol

Almost as soon as Bucky sets his phone down, his screen buzzes with another message. He opens it quickly.

**Steve Rogers:** I’ve always wanted a dog. Allergic though, haha.

And then immediately after:

**Steve Rogers:** Sorry that was kind of a weird thing to tell you. Anyway.

Bucky smiles. He likes Steve, and he’s only been talking to him for forty seconds.

**Bucky Barnes:** PWDs are hypoallergenic! So depending on how bad your allergies are, you might be able to handle being around one. You’d have to give it a try first, though, to test things out.

He hesitates. He’s potentially about to do something very stupid—but nothing ventured nothing gained, right?

**Bucky Barnes:** If you wanted, you and Rufus and I could meet up, and you could practice being around his breed for a while. No pressure tho :)

He sits on his couch, eyes stuck to the screen as he watches the three little dots pop up, then go away, then pop up again as Steve texts. It takes a  _ very long time. _

**Steve Rogers:** Really? You’re not worried I’m a pervert or a dognapper or something?

Groaning out loud at the stupidity of himself, cringing at the absolute lack of game that he possesses, Bucky answers.

**Bucky Barnes:** You’re too cute to be a pervert or a dognapper ;)

**Bucky Barnes:** Plus we would meet in a heavily populated area so like. That brings the risk of doing crime down heavily.

It takes a solid minute for Steve’s response to come through. Bucky feels like me might be having a heart attack by the time he sees the message.

**Steve Rogers:** I assumed that you were too cute to be a serial killer, so if we end up “doing crime” then I guess we deserve each other ;)

Bucky whoops out loud, getting up to do a little dance of victory around his living room before flopping down on his couch to text Steve back.

**Bucky Barnes:** FUCK YEAH

**Bucky Barnes:** I mean

**Bucky Barnes:** Yay please don’t murder me?

***

They meet at the coffee shop by Bucky’s building, sitting outside so Rufus can come. Steve doesn’t sneeze. Steve holds Bucky’s hand, and Bucky’s heart basically just explodes.

_ Take that, Natasha,  _ he thinks. 


	5. Day 5: Reminder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Soldier has a Book. The Soldier writes down the phrases that flash through his mind, the pictures, the strings of dialogue, the seconds of movement. He steals a backpack from a sleeping man, and he puts the Book in there, and he straps it on over his shoulders and chest. Tight, so it won’t fall off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Five, Reminder: What trinkets or items does each member of your OTP keep with them to remind them of their significant other? A gift? A photograph? Something else?

The Soldier has a Book. The Soldier writes down the phrases that flash through his mind, the pictures, the strings of dialogue, the seconds of movement. He steals a backpack from a sleeping man, and he puts the Book in there, and he straps it on over his shoulders and chest. Tight, so it won’t fall off. 

***

The Soldier sleeps on the concrete between buildings, stiff in clothes bought with the money his handlers gave him for this Mission. This Mission that he abandoned. This Mission, whose face flashes through the Soldier’s mind more often than anything else.

The Soldier clips his backpack to his chest when he sleeps, arms wrapped around it. The Book is in the backpack. The Soldier’s mind is in the book.

He doesn’t let anyone sneak up on him and steal his things in the night.

***

_ Bucky. _

The wind is cold. The Soldier is perched on the roof of the building beside Mission’s building, legs crossed, a knife in each hand. He scrambles to open his Book and the knives clatter against the roof as the word repeats and repeats and repeats in his head, flipping through pages until he finds the one he is looking for.

There.

Full.

_ Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky Bucky _

The Soldier turns to a new page. Holding his smooth gray pen carefully in his flesh hand, the Soldier writes it down again, and Mission’s face shows up behind the Soldier’s eyes, pale and smiling.

The Soldier wishes that he could draw. The Soldier wishes that he could capture Mission’s face here on the pages of the Soldier’s Book, so that he could keep it forever, and it wouldn’t be scary to wonder if someday, Mission’s face would stop running through the Soldier’s head, and he would never see Mission again.

_ Steve was always better at drawing than you. _

The Soldier doesn’t know what that means.

The Soldier writes it down anyway.

***

_ Steve Rogers,  _ says the Soldier’s mind.  _ Steve Rogers Steve Rogers SteveRogersSteveRogersSteveRogers— _

“Ok _ ay!” _ the Soldier growls, launching himself to a seated position and unzipping his backpack, which he is wearing on his front like a big pocket. He is still on the building opposite the Mission’s building’s roof. He finds he feels less like his skin is on fire here, less like his brain is melting. He can look in the Mission’s window, and watch him sit at his table looking sad.

It is a good position.

The Soldier withdraws his Book and his pen, and writes in a very careful hand,  _ Steve Rogers.  _ He writes it about ten more times, just to be secure.

Mission’s face pops up every time he does. That guy is everywhere, isn’t he.

***

There is a library near Mission’s apartment. The Soldier enters. He notices that people give him looks that are not strictly supportive, but that hardly bothers him; he is used to being looked at with fear, or disgust, or hatred. Mild displeasure is nothing.

There are many computers in the library. The Soldier knows how to use computers. His handlers ensured it.

He sits down at one. Today is a brain-screaming-Steve-Rogers day, so his fingers type out the name very slowly, ensuring that the Soldier gets every last letter correct.

Mission’s face appears on the screen.

_ “WHAT,”  _ says the Soldier, ignoring the people who shoot him dirty faces. He glares menacingly at the screen, but it doesn’t change. He types in  _ Steve Rogers _ again, but it doesn’t change.

He prints out a picture of Mission, one where he is wearing a stupid helmet on his stupid big head and has a look on his stupid nice face that that Soldier knows means he is about to do something asinine. It makes Soldier laugh, and also want to break into Mission’s apartment and sit on on him so he can’t go out into the world doing asinine, dangerous things.

He still has money, money shoved into his backpack in handfuls. He uses some to buy a glue stick and then, because they are pretty and catch his eye, a pack of twelve pens that say “gel” on them, and sparkle.

He glues Mission’s face under the eleven  _ Steve Rogers _ es. Then he circles it with a glittery purple pen. At first he thinks his own face is breaking in half, but then he realizes it’s just a smile.

***

_ you’re my friend you’re my mission then finish it because i’m with you til the end of the line _

_ til the end of the line _

_ til the end of the line _

The Soldier cries. There is no handler to punish him when they see. There is no ulterior motive. The Soldier cries, and he writes in his Book with a dark green pen until the paper rips through, a jagged, torn line.

_ your name is james buchanan barnes _

Mission is at his table. His head is in his hands.

Neither of them sleep that night.

***

The Soldier used to have a name. Bucky. Bucky.

Bucky.

_ “Bucky.” _

_ “Steve.” _

Steve Rogers.

Steve. Steve. Steve.

Mission.

***

“...Bucky?”

“Steve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FOLLOWED THE PROMPT, SEE??? I DID. I TECHNICALLY DID.


	6. Day 6: New To The Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve doesn’t have any sisters or brothers. That’s something Steve had told Bucky at recess one day, when they were sitting under the big oak tree in the schoolyard, and Steve was drawing pictures in the dirt with a stick. Bucky hadn’t understood at first; didn’t everybody have siblings? Didn’t everybody have someone who would love them and play with them no matter what?
> 
> But Steve didn’t. And Bucky decided in that moment that he would be that person for Stevie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Six, New to the Family: Each member of your OTP meeting the other’s family for the first time. Does each family approve of the one dating the other? What sorts of shenanigans do they get into?

The first time Bucky brings little Stevie Rogers over for dinner, it’s easy.

Bucky is seven and Steve is six, and they’re both terribly grown up, but they don’t either of them much mind sitting at the end of the table with the little girls. Bucky’s sisters like Steve—especially Becca, who is five, and who thinks that the hair ribbon Steve brings her, wrapped carefully in a patched handkerchief, is the prettiest thing she has ever seen.

Steve doesn’t have any sisters or brothers. That’s something Steve had told Bucky at recess one day, when they were sitting under the big oak tree in the schoolyard, and Steve was drawing pictures in the dirt with a stick. Bucky hadn’t understood at first; didn’t everybody have siblings? Didn’t everybody have someone who would love them and play with them no matter what?

But Steve didn’t. And Bucky decided in that moment that he would be that person for Stevie.

He doesn’t really mind if his sisters love him, too. Maybe his  _ is  _ only six, but Steve already doesn’t smile very much, and maybe he  _ is _ only seven, but Bucky would already do anything to make sure he’s happy.

Easy.

***

The first time Bucky goes to Steve’s house, it’s because Steve didn’t come to school that day.

Bucky isn’t dumb; he knows what they say about Steve. All their friend’s parents, thinking they aren’t noticed by the children; all of their teacher’s, voices muffled behind their hands in the lunchroom. He knows they say Steve is sick. He knows they say Steve won’t make it to ten.

They’re wrong, of course. Stevie Rogers is the strongest fella Bucky knows. Sure, he’s skinny and scrawny, and sure, he’s knocked down by a cough five times more than anybody else their grade, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s  _ strong.  _ He punched Jimmy Mcalister's eye tooth out the second week of school for calling a girl fat. He got socked in the nose for his troubles and bled and bled and didn’t once cry, not even when Bucky could barely hold back the tears himself.

Steve Rogers is invincible. Steve Rogers is never gonna die. Bucky can’t even imagine it.

But Steve doesn’t come to school on Wednesday, and Mrs. Rogers never lets Steve miss, and Bucky can’t help the way his belly feels funny when he remembers what all of those adults are muttering about Steve all the time. So he runs across town to Steve’s apartment as soon as school lets out.

Mrs. Rogers opens the door after he’s been standing outside for a few seconds, raising both eyebrows when she sees him.

She looks a little bit like Steve, with her willowy waist and her blond hair. Bucky decides that he likes her.

“Hello, ma’am,” he says, giving her the smile that always convinces his Ma to give him an extra cookie after supper. “I’m James Barnes from school. Steve’s friend. We all missed him very much today, ma’am.”

Her face does something funny at those words. He misses it, because he hears Steve from somewhere inside the apartment calling out “Bucky? That you?”

Bucky wants to run past Sarah Rogers and find Steve and give him a hug and then tell him about how he pushed Jimmy down because he was mean to a girl again and he knew Steve woulda if he’d been there—but he stands still. Twists his hands together in his eagerness, but stands still.

“Yeah, Stevie, it’s me!” he says, hoping belatedly that it’s not rude to yell past people’s Mas. He cuts a glance up at her, worried, but she gives him a smile; soft in the middle, hard around the edges, like her face doesn’t get the chance to do that very often.

“Come on in, James,” she says, stepping back, and he barely gets out a quick “Thank you, ma’am!” before he’s trotting inside to find Steve.

Steve is in his bedroom, even though it’s the middle of the day.

He doesn’t look very good.

“Hey, pal,” says Bucky, fighting to keep that bright smile on his face. Steve looks tiny, tinier than usual, propped up in his bed. He looks like he could sink back into all those pillows and blankets and just never come back up again. “Missed you at school today.”

Steve doesn’t smile. There are spots high up on his cheeks, bright red spots, but that’s the only bit of color he’s got anywhere on him. The rest of him looks pale, washed out, gray like the old sheets he’s wrapped in. He coughs, and his little chest rattles with a rasp Bucky can hear from across the room.

“Missed you, too,” Steve says, pushing his bangs back from his forehead. They stick to his skin with sweat. “Wanted to come, but—” he pauses to cough again, and it’s in that second that Bucky feels afraid for Steve for the first time in his life, afraid like he’s going to be so many times in the future— “but Ma said my cough was too bad.”

“Prob-ly best,” says Bucky, ignoring the way his heart is beating a little heavier than it was before he walked in here. He pulls up the rocking chair across the room from Steve’s bed and sits in it, leaning his elbows forward on Steve’s mattress. Steve rolls a bit towards him with the movement, and he swats at Bucky in mock annoyance. “You woulda been bored anyway. Well, most of the time. Only Jimmy did this…”

And he’s off, telling the tale of Jimmy’s misdeeds with perhaps more color than the events actually warrant. Steve laughs in all the right places, scowls and backs Bucky up; but his eyes are growing heavy, Bucky can see.

Bucky’s voice grows slower, fades. Finally, he stops talking altogether as he watches Steve slip into sleep, Steve’s brow still furrowed in his permanent frown.

Bucky hopes he doesn’t hurt.

Sarah Rogers comes to get Bucky, leading him out of Steve’s room with a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Thank you for checking up on him, James,” she says, her Irish brogue thick, her eyes kind. “I know that cheered him up.”

“He’s my best friend,” Bucky says.

She smiles at him. It seems softer than it did earlier, almost completely happy. “He’s lucky to have you,” she says.

Bucky thinks about how Steve has no siblings, nobody at home other than his hard-working Ma to make him happy and to love him.

“Will Steve be at school tomorrow?” he asks her.

Her smile dims. “Probably not for a while, son,” she says gently.

Bucky nods. He knows, now.

“Can I come visit him until he’s better?” he asks her, hoping hoping hoping that she will say yes. He knows he’s not supposed to invite himself into other people’s homes—but  _ Steve. _

“Of course,” she says quietly.

Steve is out for two weeks. Bucky comes by every day. Steve lives.

Bucky loves him. Bucky makes him happy. And even though Bucky has people at home, has sisters—Steve loves him and makes him happy, too.

Easy. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a fun fact about me: my diet consists purely of kudos and comments, so if you want me to survive, SMASH THAT BUTTON


	7. Day 7: Laughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Buck,” Steve says again, voice going a little softer. His right hand is resting over Bucky’s bare hip, and he lets it drift up Bucky’s spine, across the nape of his neck. His palm settles over the curve of Bucky’s skull, fingers sinking into his thick hair, which his grown nearly to Bucky’s shoulders by now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Seven, Laughter: Your OTP making each other laugh. Jokes? Stories? Tickle fights?

“Bucky. Bucky. Buck _ yyyy. _ ”

Nothing. Not that Steve minds, not really. It’s mainly the principle of the thing, the reason that he’s trying so hard to get Bucky’s attention: it’s mid-morning, and they’re still in bed, and the sun is shining in through the windows because they forgot to draw the curtains last night, and Bucky is curled up with his face mashed into Steve’s shoulder, one arm thrown over Steve’s chest, and Steve is… happy. 

And Bucky is, too. Steve can say that with complete certainty. The assurance of that thought erupts golden bubbles in Steve’s stomach, makes him want to laugh, makes him want to, absurdly, cry. It’s a lot of emotions—all the good kind.  

“Buck,” Steve says again, voice going a little softer. His right hand is resting over Bucky’s bare hip, and he lets it drift up Bucky’s spine, across the nape of his neck. His palm settles over the curve of Bucky’s skull, fingers sinking into his thick hair, which his grown nearly to Bucky’s shoulders by now.

“Ngk,” says Bucky, voice muffled. They eye that is visible to Steve is squeezed tightly closed, but he can see the corner of Bucky’s mouth ticking up as Steve traces circles along Bucky’s scalp.

“Oh look he’s alive,” Steve says. He sounds absolutely, completely, utterly besotted, which is not at all the lofty tone he was going for. He finds that he doesn’t give a damn.

Bucky makes a series of muddy noises that Steve only understands to mean “not everyone is a self-hating morning person like you, asshole” after years and years of dealing with Bucky Barnes in the mornings. Bucky pokes him half-heartedly in the side, but the effect is mostly ruined when he just burrows in closer to Steve, lips pressing to the skin of his shoulder in the approximation of a kiss.

Steve laughs. The movement of his chest shifts Bucky’s arm slightly, but Bucky just tightens his grip.

“It’s not even morning anymore,” Steve persists, simply to say something, simply because he loves Bucky and he loves this morning and he loves this moment, this one, right here, bantering playfully in their bed with their clothes off and the sun soaking into Bucky’s golden skin.

“Fuck  _ off _ , Stevie,” Bucky grumbles. He hoists himself up very suddenly on one hand and is still there for a second, just looking down at Steve, eyes flickering over Steve’s face like he’s drinking him in.

And then he flops back down directly on top of Steve again, folds in all his limbs so that he molds perfectly to all of Steve’s nooks and crannies, and presumably falls back asleep.

And Steve laughs again. Because this warm golden feeling inside of him cannot be contained. Because he is happy. Because he is in love.

Because he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof. a day late on this one. sorry, friends! life, yanno


	8. Day 8: First Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how it happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Eight, First Kiss: Exactly what it sounds like-- make a piece inspired by/about your OTP's first kiss.

This is how it happens: 

Bucky has been here, Wakanda, for a while now. Bucky hasn’t been awake for very long. Steve came as soon as he could.

Now, Bucky stands here, his smile smaller than it used to be but no less bright, his hair a little bit longer, his beard just starting to come in, and when Steve steps forward and folds Bucky up in his arms he fits there perfectly.

Just like always.

“Hi, Buck,” Steve says, voice thick. He closes his eyes, breathes in: Bucky smells like summer, and metal, and  _ him. _

“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs back, arm like steel around Steve’s back. “It’s been a while.” 

Steve smiles into Bucky’s neck, and steps back slowly, and keeps one of his arms around Bucky because he can’t really bear to let go just yet. 

There are people here, Steve sees now, people he hasn’t really registered when King T’Challa had led him into this room so full of Bucky. People Steve should probably acknowledge, he thinks with embarrassment.

“Hello,” he says, meeting eyes, giving his best Captain America smile. “Thank you for having me.”

“Captain Rogers,” says a girl, young-looking but with the assurance of someone twice her age. Princess Shuri. She looks amused. “That was a long hug.”

Steve blushes. Bucky laughs, pulls him closer.

“Jealous?”

This is how it happens:

They’re left mostly alone for the rest of the day. Bucky, with eyes like he’s telling a secret, takes Steve’s hand in his and leads him out, out, out across a golden field.

“It’s beautiful,” Steve says, and it’s true: every color seems brighter, every sound clearer. The sky is a bright, cerulean blue, and in the distance, the vast city shines like so many stars.

Bucky squeezes his hand, fingers warm and dry on Steve’s. Their gazes meet, sparks of blue fire in an open plain, and steve thinks  _ Bucky. Bucky. Bucky. _

“C’mon,” Bucky says, quiet. Steve follows.

They wend their way through what looks like a complicated game of soccer, played by several little children who wave cheerfully at Bucky and stare openly at Steve as they pass. Bucky waves back silently, with an ease that Steve wouldn’t have expected. It’s like he knows them.

He wants to ask a question as they keep walking, as they enter a corpse of leafy trees, but it hesitates on the tip of his tongue.

“I’ve been awake a little over a month.” Bucky answers Steve’s unspoken inquiry, looking out over the hill they are descending and avoiding Steve’s eyes. His voice is low, a little rough. “I just wanted to make sure. I didn’t want to bring you here just so you could watch me go back under again.” He stops, hesitating, and Steve stops walking. Bucky halts beside him. He glances at Steve sidelong. “I’m sorry.”

That is more than he has said to Steve since they found each other again, more than he has said to Steve in over seventy years. Steve missed the sound of his voice so goddamn much.

“Buck,” he starts. He tugs Bucky’s hand until the man will look at him, and then he smiles. “Bucky. That isn’t something to be sorry for. You did what you thought was best. You are in charge of you, and I’m honored that you want me here at all.”

This is how it happens:

Wind rushes through the trees, and they rustle faintly. There’s a snatch of birdsong in Steve’s ear, the echoing voices of people hidden from them by these trees, and who they are likewise hidden from. Bucky turns toward him, his face upturned, the sun bright against his skin.

This is how it happens:

Steve thinks  _ this is it.  _ Steve thinks  _ Bucky.  _ Steve steps forward deliberately, the sole of his boot crunching the dry grass beneath them, and Bucky’s hand settles softly against his waist as they move in close, touch as light as anything.

This is how it happens:

“Do you know,” Bucky says quietly, lips barely moving, letting Steve sway closer to him and not backing away, “that I missed you even when I didn’t know what you meant to me?”

This is how it happens:

Steve kisses him.

Lips and teeth, hands and necks, arms and chests and hearts and sighs. Steve kisses him, and Steve kisses him, and Steve kisses him—and Bucky kisses him back.

“I missed you.” Steve’s words are a puff of air against Bucky’s lips. Bucky swallows them with a press of his mouth against Steve’s, runs his hand from Steve’s waist up his ribs up his neck, brushes the line of Steve’s jaw with his thumb. There is something shivering open in Steve’s core, shivering apart, breaking him in half and knitting him whole again; there is something, something big and eternal and known.  _ This is it.  _ “I love you.”

When Bucky smiles, Steve can feel it against his lips, sweet and slow. Smaller than it used to be, but no less bright.

Bucky kisses the corner of Steve’s cheek and then buries his face in the crook of Steve’s neck, pressing close close close. “I love you, too.”

That is how it happens.


	9. Day 9: Thirdwheeling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let me get something straight,” he says, watching as she compares three identical black t-shirts with the eye of an art critic. “You and Clint are going on a date, and you want me to come, and Clint wants his friend—who is apparently hot and nice and single—to come, and you’re telling me that this isn’t another ploy to set me up with someone? No double date?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Nine, Thirdwheeling: Your OTP plus a third wheel. Is it awkwardly quiet, or chaotically crazy?
> 
> this one got away from me. i added too many wheels. alas.

“He’s nice. Kinda quiet. You’ll like him.”

Steve, sitting cross-legged on Natasha’s bed, watches her suspiciously.

“Let me get something straight,” he says, watching as she compares three identical black t-shirts with the eye of an art critic. “You and Clint are going on a date, and you want me to come, and Clint wants his friend—who is apparently hot and nice and single—to come, and you’re telling me that this  _ isn’t  _ another ploy to set me up with someone? No double date?”

Natasha sighs, and throws the two shirts that didn’t make the cut at his head. “I  _ told _ you, Steven. You guys are third-and-fourth-wheeling. We’re going bowling. You can’t bowl with only two people.”

Steve, who had once bowled completely by himself on a school trip when he was young and skinny and sick and had no friends, strongly disagreed. Now he’s big and physically healthy and has two friends and he still feels the same. However he had enough self preservation to know not to mention this to Natasha. Although she probably already knows. She’s omnipotent like that.

“If you go I’ll buy you as much shitty bowling alley pizza and beer as you want,” Natasha says wheedlingly.

“You mean  _ Clint _ will buy me as much shitty bowling alley pizza and beer as I want,” Steve grumbles, but he knows he’s giving in. It’s been a while since he’s been out with Natasha and Clint, let alone someone other than them, and it’s only a couple hours. Plus: free food.

“I won’t make fun of you throw the ball too hard and break the pins,” Natasha adds, giving him a beatific smile, and he huffs and falls backwards on his bed and resigns himself to a highly awkward evening.

***

The place is crowded already, since it’s a Friday night, full of rowdy kids and sort-of-almost-drunk adults. It’s loud, too; the music playing is kinda poppy and turned up much too high. Steve wants to leave.

“No,” Natasha says before he can even open his mouth, her small hand whipping out and snatching his wrist with claw-like fingers. “You’re becoming a hermit, and I’m breaking you of that habit.”

“Ugh,” he says, but lets her pull him further into the building.

A few rows down, Clint’s head pops up, and he waves at them wildly. They wave back.

Steve cranes his neck, but he doesn’t see the friend Clint brought. Steve just hopes they aren’t too… much.

Natasha and Steve collect their shoes—the size difference between them is almost laughable—and make their way over.

“Nat!” says Clint, leaping over the bench to give her a rushed kiss. He’s wearing a baggy purple shirt and baggy jeans; his hair looks like a blond bird’s nest; once again Steve marvels at the fact that he’s dating someone as put together as Natasha Romanov.

Natasha smile as him, small like she doesn’t quite mean to, and slides her arm around his waist. She says something back, but Steve isn’t listening anymore,  _ can’t  _ listen anymore.

He sees the friend.

A little shorter than Steve, maybe. Muscular, sort of bulky in a way that momentarily causes Steve to lose his train of thought. Dark hair, gathered in a loose tail at the nape of his neck, a bit of a shadow around his chin and his jaw. Round, blue eyes.

_ Fuck you, Natasha,  _ Steve thinks desperately.

“Steve, this is Bucky,” Clint is saying, one hand going to Bucky’s left shoulder and squeezing genially.

Bucky flinches—probably imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know what they were looking for. He flexes the fingers of his left hand and Steve sees that they are metal, the glittering chrome reminiscent of Stark Tech.

_ Oh,  _ Steve thinks.

“...is Steve.”

Steve snatches his gaze away from Bucky’s hand, shining bright under the sleeve of his red henley, eyes going guiltily to Bucky’s face. He musters up a smile, but it’s weak: it’s too loud and too crowded in here, and. And.

“Nice to meet you, Steve,” Bucky says. His voice is soft and slightly hoarse, as if he doesn’t speak much—or as if he’d gone through a long time where he wasn’t  _ permitted  _ to speak much. He holds out his right hand—his flesh hand—for Steve to shake, and Steve does. He notes the buildup of calluses across Bucky’s fingers and palm: the calluses of someone who held a gun often, and well.

_ Oh,  _ Steve thinks again, and some of that animosity he’s been feeling towards this event breaks off and away. Even more when Bucky smiles at Steve, and it’s lovely, but it holds that same absent, distracted edge that Steve’s had.

“You too,” Steve says, sounding like an idiot. He wants to ask  _ how long did you serve?  _ but that’s not a question one can whip out to a stranger at a bowling alley.

He wonders if Bucky can see the same things in him. The sounds of battle still too close to the surface of Steve’s memory. The war-torn edges of his skin.

Steve’s body cane back nearly a year ago. His mind occasionally lags behind him.

But Bucky just lets go of Steve’s hand, just steps back and away.

***

They bowl.

Clint and Natasha to one team, Bucky and Steve to another. Clint is absolutely terrible, Steve is only slightly better, Bucky is pretty good, and Natasha—

“What the  _ fuck  _ what the fuck,” Clint whispers under his breath as Natasha bowls her fifth strike in a row. She is light years ahead of all of them, score-wise. Centuries.  _ Eons.  _ Her skills have amassed a bit of a crowd.

Natasha turns and stalks back up to where they’re all sitting, flipping her red hair over one shoulder with a little smirk. The crowd claps appreciatively.

Beside Steve, Bucky lets put a very quiet laugh. Steve looks at him out of the corner of his eye, watches the way his lips curl gently upwards, and swallows.

“She’s good at everything,” Steve says, because he feels like he has to say something to keep him from standing and staring and never looking away. “It’s probably witchcraft.”

Bucky turns those eyes on Steve. Steve spends too long working out their exact shade—a blend of blue and of gray and of green—and doesn’t ever really get there, in the end.

“‘S embarrassing for the rest of us,” Bucky says in his quiet voice, turning into Steve a little. His arms are crossed over his chest and the gesture makes the muscles of his shoulders bunch and flex and, god, Steve can’t believe he’s thinking this, but he  _ really  _ wishes Natasha and Clint had set this up as a double date, he  _ really does.  _ “Wish she’d tone down those powers.”

Steve laughs. Not because it’s funny, really, but because he wants Bucky to smile again, and enforcing cheer seems as good a way as any to get that result.

In the end, Natasha obviously wins, by a frankly obscene number of points. Clint ranks so for down that he buys himself a whole shitty pizza to “eat out his emotions.” Bucky laughs again.

“Thanks for coming, boys,” Natasha says as they gather outside the doors of the bowling alley, arm in arm with Steve. She’s driving him home, and then Clint is driving Bucky, and Steve wishes that he could think of a smooth way to offer Bucky a ride because Clint and Natasha already live together anyway, but he doesn’t have his car and he’s. An idiot. “We should do this again sometime.”

“Thanks for inviting me,” Bucky says. He’s smiling again, but: the edges are strained, his eyes are slightly unfocused, he looks pleased but also like he’s absolutely reached his limit, and hell, does Steve understand that.

_ Can I have your number please?  _ Steve wants to ask. But he doesn’t. And he knows he won’t. He doesn’t know how to navigate things like that anymore, he doesn’t want to burden someone as wonderful as Bucky clearly is with a messed up guy like himself. So instead he thinks about it, thinks about if Bucky said yes and what would happen after that, and doesn’t say a word as Natasha drives him home.

She doesn’t call him out on it. She knows how it gets in his head, sometimes.

***

“Clint says Bucky really liked you.”

Steve, squinting at the computer as he tries to finish the project he’s working on that was supposed to have been done this morning, nearly deletes the whole thing as he jerks in surprise.

It’s been a week since their third-and-fourth-wheeling experience, and neither Clint, Natasha, or Steve has mentioned Bucky since then. Steve had finally stopped wishing for it to happen, and now  _ this. _

“Er,” he says, because  _ what _ , and leans carefully away from his computer, pressing the phone closer to his ear. He can hear Natasha laughing lightly over the line.

“I’m guessing that sentiment is returned?” she asks, voice thick with amusement.

“Well,” he says—splutters, more like. “I mean—I mean, yes, of course, he was very nice and, and I enjoyed talking to him and. Um. Yes.”

She laughs again, louder. “I’ll give him your number, if you’d like. Maybe we can make it a  _ real _ double date, this time.”

He hangs up on her.

***

Steve works from home. It’s a good fit: not too many people to be around, plenty of peace and quiet when he needs to concentrate, he can play his music as loud as he wants when designing a logo or a poster or what have you without getting complaints. However, there are certain distractions that he wouldn’t get in an office—namely in the shape of the coffee shop he lives above.

He is down there now, collecting his order from the barista who recognizes him and gives him a smile, and heading to his usual seat in the back corner. He takes a sip and prepares to slide into his chair—

Only there’s someone already there.

“Bucky?”

Bucky looks up.

His hair is loose today, just brushing the tops of his shoulders in dark waves. The shirt he’s wearing brings out the blue in his eyes, deepens it, heightens it. He’s reading, something big, and he uses one finger of his metal hand to mark his place as he smiles at Steve.

“Steve,” he says, and his smile widens as he says the word, shapes it into something that’s almost soft. He gestures at the chair across from him, and with a small grin himself, Steve sits down. “How are you?”

“Good,” Steve says, adjusting his long legs beneath the tabletop. His foot bumps Bucky’s ankle and he makes to pull back, but Bucky bumps him purposefully, gaze sharp, and Steve freezes. Takes a deep breath. Doesn’t move away. “I’m really, really good. You?”

“Happy to see you here,” Bucky says quietly. He shuts his book and moves it to the side, leaning both forearms on the table as he moves in closer. “You know I, um.” He laughs, and glances away. “I’m going to ask you something presumptuous, and I want you to understand that you don’t have to answer me. Ok?”

Brow furrowed, Steve nods. “Ok.”

“Where did you, um.” Bucky’s voice sinks lower, and Steve leans across the table to here him, watching as the other man trains his own gaze firmly upon his unmatched hands. “Where did you serve?”

_ Oh. _

Steve takes a breath. He is quiet, quiet, quiet until Bucky looks at him. “Afghanistan,” he says, and realizes it’s the first time he’s ever said it aloud to someone since he’s been back. He doesn’t like to talk about it, doesn’t like anyone to know, because they don’t understand.

He thinks that Bucky will understand.

“Afghanistan,” he repeats, and Bucky nods. “You?”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth lifts, an acknowledgement of the fact that Steve  _ knew _ just as well as Bucky had. “Afghanistan,” he says, nodding again. “Was captured for a while. Got home two years ago.”

It comes easily, this conversation. And when it’s over, the next one comes easily, too. And when Bucky’s metal hand falls over Steve’s next to their cups, Steve doesn’t move away.

“I’m going to ask you something presumptuous,” Steve says after their drinks are long empty, and their refills are, too. Bucky smiles at him, the gesture sliding naturally across his face, and lifts an eyebrow. 

“Ok.”

Steve breathes in, hesitating a bit, even though he’s fairly sure he knows the answer. “Can I have your number?”

Bucky laughs. Steve was right. The answer was yes.   


	10. Day 10: Flustered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky couldn't stop staring at Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Ten, Flustered: Your OTP being flustered. It could be one member, it could be both.

Bucky couldn’t stop staring at Steve. 

He was used to Steve being beautiful. The man had been his best friend for nearly their whole (considerably longer than most people’s) lives, and Bucky’d been pining after him for over half that amount of time—it was old hat stuff for him to shove down whatever awe he was feeling over Steve at that moment, and act like nothing was amiss.

But  _ today. _

But  _ oh my god. _

Steve, that beautiful, wonderful, fucking sneaky  _ dumbass _ —Steve had gone and gotten a  _ tattoo.  _ A tattoo that  _ meant something. _

And Bucky couldn’t stop staring at him.

It had been a few hours, so Steve’s healing factor had already reduced any irritation from the inking needle, and let the tattoo settle into the skin over his bicep like it belonged there. Like he’d been born with it. The image looked absolutely beautiful on Steve’s golden skin; it stood out with stark, vibrant intention, and Bucky’s eye was drawn to it over, and over, and over again.

Now, as Steve stood in their kitchen making a pot of coffee and Bucky sat at the table (pretending to be) cleaning his knives, Bucky didn’t bother trying to hide how enthralled he was with the new art on Steve’s body. He stared openly, confident in the fact that Steve was facing away from him and wouldn’t see.

Steve had drawn the image himself. It was a shield, perfectly round like the shield he wielded in battle; half of it was the standard red, white, and blue stripes of Steve’s shield, but the other half…

A gray background. In the center, bisected in perfect half, a single red star.

Of course Steve had cleared it with Bucky first. Had asked him if Steve getting that picture inked permanently upon his skin was uncomfortable for Bucky, was something that he didn’t want to happen, would upset him. Bucky hadn’t been able to explain how he felt about it. Of  _ course  _ it didn’t upset him that Steve was getting a fucking tattoo of their fucking symbols upon his skin, of  _ course  _ it didn’t make him uncomfortable, of  _ course  _ Steve should do it.

Bucky hadn’t been able to say that. The words had gotten lodged in his throat, suddenly tight with emotion. So he’d just nodded. Grunted, “That’s fine,” and then gone to bed and stared at the ceiling and tried not to have a nervous breakdown.

He didn’t think he could hold it in anymore, though. Steve’s tattoo was somehow  _ more  _ now that it was off the paper and on him, and Bucky was going to combust if he didn’t say something.

“Why?”

That hadn’t been what he’d meant to start with. He’d meant to ease into it: say something about how he liked the look of it, make a joke about how he never expected good Catholic Stevie Rogers to get a tattoo—but he wasn’t in a joking mood. He wasn’t in a light mood.

Steve turned around, coffee cup in hand, expression on his face like he’d been waiting for Bucky to ask.

He didn’t bother asking Bucky to explain. He just came to their kitchen table and sat down carefully in the chair across from Bucky, folding his big hands around his mug and looking down at the coffee within.

“Because,” he said, his voice mellow. “I never want to forget.”

Bucky’s throat felt tight and hot again, his breath felt short. He hoped he wasn’t going to have a panic attack. Or fucking  _ cry. _ “Forget what?” he asked, words shaky and thin.

Steve did look up then, meeting Bucky’s eyes through the steam coming off of his drink, and smiled gently. The blue on his tattoo almost matched the blue in his eyes.

“I never want to forget that, despite everything, you and I are together again.”

Bucky, staring hard, breathing hard, knew that he had that look of scary intensity upon his face that he got sometimes, but he couldn’t make it go away. He needed to  _ think about this. _

Steve watched him, not turned off by Bucky’s laser focus. Bucky could, however, see Steve’s cheeks going dark as Bucky’s eyes settled and settled and settled again upon the tattoo over his muscle, and Bucky made a decision.

“Steve,” he said at last, and his voice sounded a little like a gunshot in the small space of their kitchen. He cleared his throat, leaned forward over the table. “I think that it’s beautiful.”

Steve’s blush darkened further, spread down his neck and crawled up the tops of his ears. His smile was at once bashful and proud. “I think  _ you’re  _ beautiful,” he mumbled, and then immediately took a drink of his piping hot coffee just to avoid making eye contact.

Bucky froze.  _ Oh. _

He stood.

Came around the edge of the table. Liked the way Steve’s eyes were glued to him as he reached Steve’s side, and reached out with his flesh hand to trace the edges of the tattoo.

“Yeah?” Bucky asked softly. Steve’s skin was warm and smooth beneath his fingers, the lines of the tattoo almost impossible to tell apart from his bare flesh when Bucky closed his eyes and touched. “You do?”

“I really, really do,” Steve said, voice a little stronger. Bucky opened his eyes.

Steve was staring at him with unabashed longing in his eyes.

It was Bucky’s turn to burn.

“ _ Steve, _ ” he said, and dropped himself into Steve’s lap, ignoring the way the chair creaked ominously beneath them. He pressed his forehead to Steve’s, hands going up to cup the back of Steve’s neck, and Steve’s arms wrapped automatically around Bucky’s waist as if this was something they did every day. It was  _ not.  _ “Why didn’t you say something, sweetheart?”

“I wanted to be sure,” Steve said. His voice wavered, and he swallowed, and Bucky tipped his chin up with two fingers and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, smiling as Steve sighed. “I wanted to be absolutely sure.”

“God, you’re a dumbass,” Bucky breathed, and kissed him right on the mouth this time, solid and longing and sure. “You didn’t have to get yourself all inked up for that. You coulda just  _ asked.” _

“I wanted to get myself all inked up,” Steve said stubbornly through the volley of Bucky’s light kisses. “It’s true, what I said. I always want to remember that you came back to me, after all we went through.”

Bucky smiled. He curled his right hand over the tattoo on Steve’s arm, curled his left over the curve of Steve’s jaw, and let Steve kiss him and kiss him.


	11. Day 11: Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky wakes up warm. 
> 
> He isn't used to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Eleven, Rest: Your OTP resting and/or sleeping together. They could be sleeping anywhere from at home in bed to out on a park bench.

It’s hard to sleep when Steve is gone. 

Their apartment feels achingly empty, overwhelmingly huge. Even though they never sleep together anyway, Bucky’s bed feels colder, bigger, more barren with Steve gone.

Bucky curls up small, arms wrapped around himself, blinks tired dry eyes at the wall in front of him, and wishes desperately for a sleep that he knows won’t come. Steve has been gone for three days and three nights now, away on a mission that they told him would only take half a day at most, and Bucky feels cold and abandoned without him. The logical side of his brain knows that Steve is going to come back; the (significantly larger) side of his brain that spent seventy years getting fried and frozen and is now riddled with paranoia has the rest of him one hundred percent convinced that Steve is either 1. dead or 2. going to move out of the country and leave Bucky alone for the rest of his life.

Telling himself to take deep breaths, Bucky snakes his hand out from under the mound of covers he has walled himself up in and grabs his phone off the nightstand. He goes to his messages, and clicks on Steve’s contact.

_ More aliens than expected. Won’t be home until Thursday. Sorry. Take care. :) _

Dated two days ago.

Steve hasn’t texted since then, which isn’t surprising; he doesn’t have any time to text while he’s on these missions. It’s miracle enough that he even has time to warn Bucky when they’re prolonged, although he always manages to—something for which Bucky is very grateful.

Bucky looks at the clock on his phone. Twelve thirty-two am.  _ Technically, _ now is Thursday, which means  _ technically _ that it’s probably ok for Bucky to send Steve a quick little text that he can ignore if he wants to. Right? Right.

_ miss u _

He hits send before he can talk himself out of it and then turns his phone off, setting it back on his nightstand.

Then he rolls over, and tries desperately to go to sleep.

***

Bucky floats. Half in, half out of consciousness, he exists in that nebulous sort of dream world where he isn’t sure what is real and what is simply the imaginings of his sleepy head. There is someone moving around beside his bed, movements clumsy like they’re stumbling, and Bucky opens his eyes, watching the figure’s shadow push through the darkness.

They come to the edge of the bed, peeling back the covers. As they climb onto the mattress and rest their head upon the pillow, Bucky smiles, and something clicks back into place behind his sternum. Drowsiness hits him like a tidal wave.

“Stevie,” he murmurs, reaching out semi-blindly with one hand and pressing it against Steve’s chest. He can feel Steve’s heartbeats against his palm:  _ da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.  _ They bleed through Bucky’s skin, run up through his veins.

“Shhh,” Steve whispers, and there’s a thin wash of moonlight sneaking in past Bucky’s curtains that illuminates the edge of Steve’s weary smile.

Bucky wraps Steve in his arms, rolling forward until his head is nestled right under Steve’s chin, and sighs as he sinks into him. Steve is warm, is alive, is  _ here _ . “Missed you,” Bucky slurs, and his heavy eyes fall shut as he shudders lightly, squirms closer.

Steve wraps Bucky in his hold. There is a faint pressure on the top of Bucky’s head, barely there and then gone again, and as Bucky is drifting to sleep, he hears Steve whisper, “I missed you too.”

***

Bucky wakes up warm.

He isn’t used to that.

He and Steve are wrapped together, a complicated tangle of knots that Bucky really doesn’t want to untie. One of Bucky’s hands rests on the small of Steve’s back; he lets himself stroke soft lines up and down over Steve’s t-shirt, lets his eyes drift back closed as Steve continues to sleep against him.

He doesn’t know why Steve is here, in bed with him instead of in his own bed—and he isn’t going to ask. When Steve comes awake, when he meets Bucky’s eyes across the few inches of pillow, when he smiles, Bucky smiles back. Bucky doesn’t let go.

They don’t get up for a long time.  


	12. Day 12: Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 1945, Bucky Barnes fell to his death from a train speeding over snowy mountains.
> 
> In 2014, Bucky Barnes was discovered in a HYDRA facility, brainwashed and cryogenically frozen. 
> 
> In 2016, Bucky Barnes became an Avenger. 
> 
> And now, he’s just left Steve Rogers’ bookstore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twelve, Shopping: Your OTP shopping together. What are they shopping for? Are they just running errands, or are they buying gifts for each other?

Steve rests his forearms against the counter, eyes glazing over as he stares out over the floor of the bookstore he owns.  

Today is Tuesday, and Tuesdays are always slow days. Customers trickle in in pairs or alone, sometimes just browsing, sometimes finding a book that strikes their fancy and curling up in one of the big armchairs in the back corner of the shop, lingering and reading for a while. It’s a gray, rainy day; everything seems more muffled somehow, a little dimmer. Steve feels almost drowsy in the peaceful quiet of this afternoon.

“Excuse me.”

The voice is soft, quiet. Steve straightens hastily, wondering how on earth he missed the man standing in front of him, because he’s certainly not  _ small _ . He’s probably a good six feet—Steve, at five-foot-four on a day when his back isn’t giving him trouble and he has to slouch, which is not often—feels ridiculously tiny before him.

“Sorry,” Steve says, fighting the blush that wants to spring to his cheeks. He puts on his best customer service smile as he attempts to meet the man’s eyes—but the man is wearing a ball cap and he’s looking down, hunched in on himself a little like he’s trying to hide. His chin-length hair falls in little clumps out of the knot he has it in, and obscures his face even further. “May I help you?”

The man shuffles forward, hands in his pockets, and moves his head a little. It might have been a nod; Steve can’t quite tell. He pulls a slip of paper out of his wrinkled jeans and slides it across the counter to Steve, and he looks up for half a second then, giving Steve a flash of dark eyes.

“Do you—do you have this book here?”

Steve touches the edge of the paper with the tips of his fingers, and the man pulls his hand hastily away, shoving it in his pocket once more.

There is the title of a book written there, in a careful, spindly, almost child-like script. It’s a history of World War II, one that Steve, despite his interest in the time period, hasn’t gotten around to reading yet. He knows that they have it in stock, though.

“Sure thing,” says Steve, and smiles again, even though the man still won’t meet his eyes. He steps out from behind the counter and leads the customer to the back of the store, pointing out the book that sits high up on the top shelf. He looks around for the stool, because there’s no way he’d ever be able to reach that, but before he can grab it the man is easily sliding it off of the shelf and cradling it in his hands.

“Thank you,” says the man, eyes on the cover.

“You’re welcome,” Steve answers. He takes a few steps back, sensing that this man is painfully shy and probably wants to be left alone as soon as possible. “Call if you need anything.”

***

An hour later, and the man finally comes up to the front of the store, his hands empty. Steve had checked on him a few times; he was reading the book uncommonly fast, sitting there with his legs crossed on the floor. He probably finished the whole thing while he was here.

He walks by the counter, head still down, but he hesitates before he can leave the store, gaze caught on something. 

Steve follows his line of sight.

The man is staring at the small wooden box that Steve mounted by the door a few months ago. It’s a comments box: there for customers to write anonymously what they think of the store—what they like about it, what they think should change. As far as Steve knows, nobody yet has used it.

But this man does. He takes a piece of paper from the shelf in the front, and picks up the pen hanging from a chain beside it, and, paper pressed up against the wall, he writes.

His pen moves slowly, carefully. He’s using his left hand, but there is a glove on it, which is odd. Maybe he’s injured, and that’s why it seems to be so difficult for him.

When he’s done, he folds the note in half with a painstaking sort of care that instantly endears Steve to him, and then tucks the note into the slot on top of the box. Then he glances over his shoulder at Steve, almost like he hadn’t meant to, and Steve’s eyes go wide with shock.

The Winter Soldier. Bucky Barnes.  _ Is in Steve’s shop.  _

Bucky turns quickly and pushes through the door. He walks out into the rain like he doesn’t even notice it.

Steve doesn’t hesitate before dashing around the edge of the counter and up to the box. He stands on tip-toe to fish the note out and then unfolds it with slightly shaky hands, eyes drinking in the line of letters there eagerly.

_ Thank you for all of your help. _

***

In 1945, Bucky Barnes fell to his death from a train speeding over snowy mountains.

In 2014, Bucky Barnes was discovered in a HYDRA facility, brainwashed and cryogenically frozen.

In 2016, Bucky Barnes became an Avenger.

And now, he’s just left Steve Rogers’ bookstore.

***

Days go by, and Bucky doesn’t come back in, and Steve starts to wonder if maybe he’d imagined the whole thing. He’d just gotten a glimpse of that customer’s face anyway; and besides, he was so sweet and… shy, really. Neither of those adjectives were in keeping with what Steve imagined an Avenger might be like—especially not one who was tortured and forced to be an assassin for seventy years.

But then there’s an army of aliens that attack a city in Colorado, and the Avengers go and stop them so of course it’s televised, and Steve watches from his couch as Bucky Barnes is interviewed. He stumbles over his words a little, he looks exhausted and uncomfortable, and. And, yeah. It’s him.

Bucky Barnes was in Steve Rogers’  _ fucking bookstore. _

***

A week after Bucky came in for the first time, he comes in for a second.

He doesn’t say anything to Steve as he walks by, so Steve doesn’t say anything to him, either. He seems more tense than he did the first time, slightly more on edge; Steve can’t imagine the sort of stress he must be under every single day, and he wants nothing less than to add to that stress.

But just when Steve thinks Bucky is going to pass him without any acknowledgement, he looks up at Steve.

Steve smiles. Can’t help it. Bucky stumbles a little as he notices the gesture, and his face makes an odd sort of spasming movement that is probably supposed to be a smile in return, and Steve finds himself in the odd position of wanting to give the former Winter Soldier a hug.

He looks away first. No sense making this weird.

Bucky goes to the same section he was in last time (World War II history). He’s still there over an hour later, so Steve goes to check on him. 

He’s seated on the floor again, legs crossed under him, back leaning against the wall. There is a book spread open in his lap; Steve isn’t near enough to read any of the words, but he can see that it’s the same one from last time, and that on the whole of the left page, there is Bucky Barnes’ army picture from so many years ago.  
Steve’s heart squeezes painfully, gives an arrhythmic little jump. 

He goes quietly back to the counter. Bucky can stay as long as he wants.

***

Bucky’s note burns a hole in Steve’s pocket throughout all of the next week.

There’s an ill-advised notion running through Steve’s head.

That’s not exactly a rare occurrence. Many of Steve’s notions are ill-advised, as anyone who knows him will tell you, but this one seems like its own particular brand of abso-fucking-lutely insane. It’s just that… Bucky’s note is so earnest. And his handwriting is so clearly new, like he had to re-learn how to write things with a hand that Steve knows is metal under that glove he always wears, and, really, what’s the worst that could happen?

So, on Tuesday morning before Steve opens the shop, he writes a quick note right under the sentence Bucky had originally penned him, making the strokes of his pen dark and easy to read,

_ You are very welcome. I hope you like the book! _

_ -Steve _

He finds the stool after fifteen minutes of looking—in the children’s section—and drags it over to the history section, climbing up and pulling down the book that Bucky always reads. He opens it to the page with Bucky’s old photo smiling out at him—and, wow, he’s… lovely. Steve’s never really noticed how beautiful he is—and slides the piece of paper there between the pages. Then he shuts it softly, and places it back upon the shelf.

Bucky comes in around the time that he always does, and this time, he looks right at Steve as he passes him. There is the faintest hint of a smile playing about his lips; he still looks awkward, and there’s a sadness in his eyes that Steve thinks is so deep that nobody could ever touch it, but the smile does wonders to soften him.

In a great feat of self-restraint, Steve does not go to the sci-fi section and peak out around the shelf to watch Bucky discover the note. In fact, he doesn’t go back there at all, today; he lets Bucky have his time (three hours; longer than usual) and, even though he might actually be dying in anticipation, stays firmly put behind the register.

Bucky leaves in a hurry, head down, shoulders up, cap pulled low over his face. No smile.

Steve retrieves the book. The note is still there—and there’s been an addition made.

_ I do, Steve. Thank you. It is very well written. _

_ You have a lovely store. Do you own it? _

_ -Bucky _

There’s so much information here that Steve almost doesn’t know what to do with it.

Well, he does know.

Even though he knows Bucky won’t be in again for a whole week now, he goes ahead and answers the note, resolving to keep it in his pocket until next Tuesday morning:

_ I’m glad! I do own this store. I opened it three years ago—right when you moved back into the city, I think! It’s very kind of you to say that it’s lovely, Bucky. I think it is, too. _

_ -Steve   _

***

_ Have you always lived in Brooklyn? I grew up here. That’s what the told me, anyway. I remember sometimes. _

_ -Bucky _

 

_ I have. Born here, raised here, stayed here. I can’t imagine myself living anywhere else.  _

_ Do you like it here? _

_ -Steve _

  
  


_ More than anywhere I can remember. It’s home.  _

_ -Bucky _

  
  


_ Do you like reading about yourself? In that book? _

_ Sorry. You don’t have to answer that. _

_ -Steve _

  
  


_ I’m trying to remember everything it tells me is true. There are blank patches still. Holes that I’m trying to fill.  _

_ I don’t like reading about myself. They talk about me like I was a hero, but I feel like the man they’re describing is someone that I never was. I like reading about my friends, though. I remember things about them—they were true heroes. _

_ -Bucky _

  
  


_ I think you’re a hero. Then, now—I think you’re a hero. _

_ -Steve _

  
  


_ Thank you, Steve. _

_ -Bucky _

  
  


_ [A drawing of Bucky, sans uniform, dressed like he always is when he comes in Steve’s store, sitting quietly in the history section. Signed “SGR.”] _

  
  


_ Did you draw that? Is it me? It’s so beautiful. I hope you don’t mind that I took that piece of paper and started a new one for us. I would like to keep it, if that’s alright with you, Steve. _

_ -Bucky _

 

  
_ Of course it’s you. Of course it’s alright with me. Of course it’s beautiful.  _

_ Keep it. It’s for you, anyway. _

_ -Steve _

***

Bucky comes in.

Their eyes meet, like they always do. Steve smiles, and Bucky smiles back—and then Bucky walks towards Steve, walks and walks and keeps walking until he is at Steve’s counter, and he is close.

“Hello, Bucky,” Steve says softly, looking right into Bucky’s eyes and catching his breath when Bucky looks right back.

Bucky lays his hands on the counter, one next to the other. Impulsively, Steve covers them with their own. Quietly, Bucky breathes.

“Hello, Steve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just realized that the prompt is "shopping" and that nobody actually PURCHASES ANYTHING in this fic aldksf
> 
> thank you for all of your comments and kudos--they are so lovely. you guys are great. have a heart <3


	13. Day 13: Our Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I'll be seeing you  
> In all the old familiar places  
> That this heart of mine embraces  
> All day and through…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Thirteen, Our Song: Your OTP and music. Do they have a song? Do they sing? Do they dance?
> 
>  
> 
> this takes place in some nebulous, happier universe where nothing is canon after tws. you're welcome.
> 
> the song that Steve and Bucky dance to is "I'll Be Seeing You" as sung by Billie Holiday. it came out in 1944 so it's conceivable that once upon a time this song played while Steve and Bucky stared longingly at each other across a crowded bar, so this is BASICALLY canon, right? right. it's pretty much all I've listened to for the past 24 hours, so you can listen to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDlKb2cBAqU) as well, and join me in sobbing into my laptop.

_ 1945 _

_ “ _ _ I'll be seeing you _

_ In all the old familiar places _

_ That this heart of mine embraces _

_ All day and through…” _

The bar is crowded. Full of servicemen and people from the town over, full of the scent of sweat and booze, full of laughter and shouts and whispers. Someone’s put this mellower song on, and Steve is glad of it; his head is just as crowded as this room, he can’t get past the sound of gunshots and the sight of blood, and the warm, gentle melody eases some of the tension in the back of his skull. He leans against the bar. Sighs.

The rest of the Howlies are spread throughout the crowd, either dancing with dames they’re never gonna see again, or drinking like it’s their last night on earth, or draped over chairs and stools, laughter harsh and loud to make up for the quiet nights they usually have. Steve understands. It’s their own way of coping—a way he partakes in, sometimes. It’s just not what he needs tonight.

He doesn’t know what he needs tonight.

_ “I'll be seeing you _

_ In every lovely summer's day _

_ In everything that's light and gay _

_ I'll always think of you that way…” _

He nurses the warmish beer in front of him, even though he knows it won’t go any way to getting him buzzed. It’s just something to do with his hands, his mouth. Something to take up time.

“Stevie.”

Steve turns halfway on his stool, one hand coming up to grasp Bucky’s shoulder as he stumbles forward. For a second, Bucky is too close for Steve to see his face for Steve to see any of him, and all he can feel is how hot Bucky’s skin is under the thick material of his uniform, hot, hot, hot like he’s burning from the inside out, hot like he’s swallowed the sun. There’s a sharp scent to him: the dark tang of whiskey, the saltiness of his skin, the musk that Steve knows from nights spent curled under the same blanket, or with their arms thrown around each other in dance halls or clubs back home. His hair brushes Steve’s cheek, and even though it’s unwashed just like all the rest of them, it is feather soft. Achingly soft.

Bucky pulls back a little. His cheeks are flushed, and his eyes are glassy and bright. His mouth is a hot wet smear in the middle of his face. He’s drunk.

“Steeevie,” Bucky says again, and it punches out of him like he didn’t mean for it to—drawn out on a sigh, a sigh that has enough voice to it to nearly be a groan. His hands grab at whatever part of Steve that’s nearest, end up landing with one on Steve’s shoulder and one gripping at the meat of his thigh. He sways close.    

_ “I'll find you in the morning sun _

_ And when the night is new _

_ I'll be looking at the moon _

_ But I'll be seeing you…” _

Steve stands, which was a mistake; he comes up flush against Bucky, arms going around him instinctively, and something cracked and quivering takes off in the cavity of Steve’s chest. He winds his fists in the fabric that hangs loose off of Bucky’s frame—still thin, so thin, too thin, ever since Steve found him on that table—to keep them from shaking.

Bucky’s hand slides up from Steve’s thigh to his hip. He blinks, long and slow and languid. Licks his lips.

“Buck,” Steve says, and when it comes out too faint, too weak, tries again: “Bucky. Let’s get you home, Bucky.”

Bucky laughs, short and sharp. There’s a terrible, desperate thing hiding behind his feverishly blue eyes, and Steve is scared of it. He begins walking Bucky through the crowd, getting him closer to the flight of stairs that leads up to the rooms they and the rest of the Howling Commandos have been loaned for the next few nights.

The jukebox is over here. Couples sway, tangled up in each other, to the slow run of the song. Steve’s heart pounds.

“No goin’ home for me, Stevie,” Bucky slurs, hanging off of Steve like his legs have up and quit working. They stop by the doorway leading to the stairs and Bucky maneuvers himself in Steve’s arms to face Steve once more, hands twined in the collar of Steve’s shirt. His fingers brush Steve’s neck, gun-made callouses catching a bit on the soft skin. Steve shivers, from his head to his toes.

“Yes there is, we’ll go home together, Bucky—”

“No,” Bucky whispers. He lifts his left hand and curls his strong fingers under the ridge of Steve’s jaw; his thumb brushes against Steve’s bottom lip as he presses it down over his mouth with a firm, tender weight. “I can’t. Shouldn’t. Too… much. In my head. In my—” he breaks off, looking disturbingly calm, looking so awfully resigned, and Steve takes his wrist and gently pulls his hand away as his own blood courses double-time through his veins.

_ “I'll be seeing you _

_ In every lovely summer's day _

_ In everything that's light and gay _

_ I'll always think of you that way…” _

“Let’s get you to bed,” Steve murmurs with a voice that feels as heavy as stone.

Bucky’s head drops forward, thumping gently against Steve’s sternum as he sags closer. His hips press against Steve’s, close and hot; Steve is still holding his wrist captive in the circle of his finger and his thumb, held aloft from their bodies, and the tension that thrums through them is tighter and deeper than it has ever been. Steve doesn’t know if he is going to collapse of combust or disappear.

“Steve,” Bucky says again, lips moving against Steve’s neck through the unbuttoned collar of his uniform shirt. “Stevie,” he repeats, and “Steve,” and then he lifts his head with considerable effort, hovering just an inch away from Steve’s face. His breath tastes hot and boozy on Steve’s mouth. “Dance with me, sweetheart.”

Steve could say yes. Steve could pull him in, and kiss him, and sway with him, all wrapped up safe and close in his arms. It’s what Steve wants more than anything.

But there are people in this room. People who wouldn’t turn a blind eye to it all. People who would make Bucky’s life hell, if they saw him dancing, like how Steve wants to dance, with another man.

Steve hesitates, and he sees the moment Bucky shatters: sees the expression on his face fall, sees that aching, swirling pain that he’s been burying behind his eyes ever since Steve found him flood back into his expression. Bucky stumbles back out of Steve’s hold, wrenching his wrist free.

“Bucky—” Steve begins, reaching out for him to say—to say—to say  _ something.  _ But Bucky is gone, slipping back into the crowd and out of Steve’s grasp.

_ “I'll find you in the morning sun _

_ And when the night is new _

_ I'll be looking at the moon _

_ But I'll be seeing you.” _

_ *** _

_ 2015 _

_ “ _ _ I'll be seeing you _

_ In all the old familiar places _

_ That this heart of mine embraces _

_ All day and through…” _

The song crackles faintly as Steve lowers the needle down. The sound that floods out is warm, familiar; it carries memories so clear and sharp that Steve has to close his eyes against them for a moment, has to grip the table that the record player is sitting on with both hands.

He found this record at a bookshop he stumbled into this morning after his run, drawn to the little place purely on a whim. As soon as he saw it, there was no question as to whether or not it was coming back to the Tower with him.

Steve hasn’t heard this song since 1945. Since that night.

Bucky died a few days after that night. Steve died a few weeks later.

He’s still in his room across the hall. Bucky is. Sleeping, maybe, although Steve thinks that’s unlikely—probably reading, scrolling through the news on his phone, doing the yoga he’s taken to practicing when he first wakes up. Steve wonders if Bucky can hear. Steve hopes Bucky can hear.

Steve turns the volume up.  

It’s just a few seconds after that that Steve hears the faint creak of Bucky’s bedroom door, and his whole body tenses up in nervous anticipation as he listens to Bucky’s slow footsteps, crossing the hallway and crossing into the room and crossing down the floor until he stands right behind Steve, warm and present.

_ “I'll be seeing you _

_ In every lovely summer's day _

_ In everything that's light and gay _

_ I'll always think of you that way…” _

“Stevie,” Bucky says—and his voice catches. Still low and slightly gravelly with sleep, his voice trips in the middle of Steve’s name, turns the second half of it into something breathy and quiet. It makes Steve’s heart clench.

He turns around to face Bucky, not completely prepared for how close they are even though he could feel Bucky’s breath dusting the back of his neck. Bucky is gentle and sleep-wilted: his hair is a bird’s nest gathered at the back of his neck, his eyes still look tired when Steve meets his gaze, and the soft white t-shirt that clings to his chest and hips and arms is wrinkled. His bare feet shuffle forward a few inches, until the tips of his toes almost come in contact with Steve’s.

Steve can’t breathe. His air is stuck somewhere between his lungs and his throat, immobile.

“Bucky,” Steve murmurs. He wants to reach out, wants to touch, wants it so badly that he feels reeled forward—but he hesitates. He stands still.

The space between them vibrates.

There are tiny lines at the corners of Bucky’s eyes, lines that weren’t there on that last night. Laugh lines, Steve realizes with a shock of happiness so deep that he almost wants to cry because of it. It’s been only twenty months since Bucky came back, but he’s getting laugh lines already. He’s happy.

A smile is trapped behind Bucky’s pink lips, fresh and swollen and waiting to get out, and—and things are different now, things are so much different. Things are better.

Steve isn’t really afraid anymore.

_ “I'll find you in the morning sun _

_ And when the night is new _

_ I'll be looking at the moon _

_ But I'll be seeing you…” _

With a steady inhale, Steve reaches forward and takes Bucky’s left hand in his right. The metal is cool and smooth against Steve’s skin—familiar by now. Not something to be avoided or ignored. A part of Bucky, and therefore something that Steve loves.

Bucky’s fingers curl around Steve’s immediately, and when Steve lifts his gaze back up to Bucky’s, that hidden smile breaks through.

Breathtaking. He’s breathtaking.

“Good song,” Bucky rasps, hand tight around Steve’s. The contact is grounding. Even so, Steve can do nothing more than nod, and hope that the stars in his eyes aren’t so bright they blind.

_ “I'll be seeing you _

_ In every lovely summer's day _

_ In everything that's light and gay _

_ I'll always think of you that way…” _

Steve moves forward this time, and he doesn’t stop until he’s pressed chest-to-chest against Bucky, and Bucky doesn’t move away, doesn’t move away, and Steve slides his arm around Bucky’s waist, cradling him close, and Bucky shudder-sighs against him.

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, feeling a smile over his face as Bucky reaches up and rests his forearm on Steve’s shoulder, warm flesh fingers cupping the back of Steve’s neck. “Sweetheart. Dance with me?”

“Yes,” Bucky says immediately, and he looks so serious now, so very earnest, and Steve cannot believe that they get to do this again. He will never stop being grateful that they get to do this again. “Steve. Yes, baby.”

Steve rests his lips against Bucky’s temple and they sway together, music crackling quietly. Steve’s pulse was pounding earlier, but it’s settled down now, mellowed; he is utterly and totally at peace. Finally. For the first time in about eighty years.

“I remember asking you,” Bucky murmurs, voice low enough that Steve barely catches it over the soft melody. “Before.”

“I’m so sorry I didn’t say yes,” Steve says, closing his eyes. Bucky feels so good in his arms. Perfect. “I have regretted it every day.”

Bucky lets go of Steve’s hand to wrap that arm around Steve. He pulls him a little closer, stroking the small of his back tenderly. “Don’t regret it,” he soothes, pressing his forehead against Steve’s neck. “Because you’re dancin’ with me now.”

Steve laughs, and if it’s a little watery, Bucky doesn’t say anything.

They stay that way, twined as close as morning glory vines, until the song ends. When it does, they make just one small shift: Bucky tips his head back, and Steve tips his head down, and they kiss in small, lingering movements, light brushes and, finally, finally, finally, deeper pulls. It feels warm. It feels like home.

It feels like they’ve each swallowed the sun.

_ “I'll find you in the morning sun _

_ And when the night is new _

_ I'll be looking at the moon _

_ But I'll be seeing you.” _   
  



	14. Day 14: Stargazing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night sky stretches above him, vast and unending, a glittering blanket of stars. Here, on the rooftop of his apartment, he is utterly exposed: bare from every angle, an offering to the elements, an offering to anybody who might be looking at him. 
> 
> He thinks there’s someone looking at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Fourteen, Stargazing: Your OTP stargazing. Where are they doing this? Are they out camping? Are they sitting on a rooftop? What constellations are they looking at?
> 
> can be read as a companion piece to [day 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19036726/chapters/45406108)

There’s a chill to the wind blowing in from across the Potomac, and it seeps in under the edges of Steve’s thick sweater, sinks deep into his skin.

The night sky stretches above him, vast and unending, a glittering blanket of stars. Here, on the rooftop of his apartment, he is utterly exposed: bare from every angle, an offering to the elements, an offering to anybody who might be looking at him.

He thinks there’s someone looking at him.

Steve spots him, sometimes. Crouched on the roof of the neighbouring building, dressed in clothes that don’t fit him very well, a ball cap pulled down low over his loose hair. There is always a certain that thrums through his limbs, an alertness to the precise cant of his head, that tells Steve he almost  _ wants  _ to be seen—and anyway, Steve knows firsthand what his abilities are. 

Bucky could hide from him if he really wanted to.

Now, tonight, Steve doesn’t let himself look, but he doesn’t have to. He can feel Bucky’s eyes on him as he tips his head back to look at the stars, he can feel Bucky’s eyes on him as he breathes and breathes and breathes.

_ He’ll come when he’s ready, _ Steve tells himself. He refuses to come to terms with the fact that that may be never at all.

For now, he watches the stars, and he waits.  


	15. Day 15: Rainy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve doesn’t know what makes him say this next thing, but it spills out of him anyway, in awkward stops and starts. “I, uh… I ain’t never…” he clears his throat, and Bucky lowers back down again, closer than before, that little frown still between his eyes. “I never kissed a girl before, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Fifteen, Rainy Day: Your OTP on a rainy day. How do they spend the time? Cuddling up with a movie? Playing video games? Watching the rain?
> 
> I feel like if you're a Stucky writer, you are contractually obligated to write a fic with this premise

Steve wakes up slow, just like always. 

He shifts around on the hard mattress first, moving his stiff shoulders, curling his aching spine. He’s cold, which also isn’t unusual; his blood doesn’t run through his body quite right, leaves the ends of his fingers and toes faintly blue sometimes when he sits still for too long.

He opens his eyes last, and it’s like blinking past strips of tar, like trying to see through a fog. Steve’s vision is always a little blurry, but it’s worse in the mornings. He’ll get a pair of glasses someday. Someday when he and Bucky have enough money that every penny doesn’t have to go towards their next meal.

Bucky. Bucky is the first thing that comes into focus, facing Steve on his side, eyes closed, pink circle of his lips hanging open a little bit. He’s coming up on his twenty-second birthday in the next few months, but his cheeks still have some of that baby softness from when they were kids, a healthy, pink glow; mashed against his pillow, he looks soft and beautiful and a little unreal. His dark hair falls down across his forehead in gentle waves, free of the pomade he styles it with during the day, and Steve has to clasp his own hands tight in front of his stomach to keep from reaching out and touching.

He should really get up, get breakfast started for the two of them since Bucky is out like a light still, but—but it’s Saturday, and miraculously, neither of them work today at all, neither of them have any previous obligations. Steve smiles groggily at the prospect, still not quite awake enough to think about hiding the gesture: the long, empty stretch of day before him, nothing but Bucky and the sound of the rain pounding their window panes to keep him company. It’s the best day Steve can imagine.

Instead, Steve stretches his toes down towards the end of the bed, and stretches his back until his fingers brush the headboard. He pulls on his spine until it pops. He sighs.

It’s wrong, maybe, to lay here and watch his best friend like this. He’d feel bad about it if he hadn’t done it a million times before, when Bucky was awake and when Bucky was asleep, a notebook and pencil in front of him as he tried his best to capture Bucky’s vibrant lines onto the paper.

It’s just that Bucky is captivating. He looks healthy and vivacious and strong—he looks perfect. Always, really, but especially in moments like these, moments where Steve is the only one around, the only one who gets to see him with his guard down. He belongs to Steve, in these moments. Steve, and no one else.

This one is all too quickly over.

Bucky’s eyelashes flutter against his cheek—Steve’s breath catches, unconscious and entirely genuine—and then he is looking at Steve, and his blue eyes almost hurt with how pretty they are. He feels a lot closer, now that he’s awake.

“Mornin’,” Bucky says, a little rough, a little low, and then sound settles like hot whiskey in the base of Steve’s stomach, smooth and dark and intoxicating. A touch of a smile accompanies the word; just a stretch of Bucky’s lips, small enough that if Steve weren’t this close, he wouldn’t be able to catch it.

“Mornin’, Buck,” Steve murmurs. Instead of sounding as lovely as Bucky does first thing in the morning, Steve just sounds ill. His voice grates at his vocal chords, gets caught somewhere down deep in his chest. He wants to grimace, but he won’t let himself.

Steve waits for Bucky to say something else, anything else, but he doesn’t. He simply rests there, eyes half-lidded and dark, lips slightly parted, and watches Steve.

The air feels thick. Steve is thankful for the roar of the rain, because surely it covers the way his heart is booming.

“Have fun last night?” Bucky asks, idle, voice slow and golden, pouring over Steve. He doesn’t really seem fully awake; he keeps blinking in long, long blinks, and he hasn’t looked anywhere but at Steve yet.

“Liked whatchin’ you dance,” Steve says, the confession slipping out of him before he can stop it. It’s entirely too honest—it’s about a million times more honest than Steve ever is about stuff like this. He tenses, preparing himself for the worst.

Sure enough, a little frown creeps up onto Bucky’s face, and Steve’s heart sinks straight down to his feet.

“You didn’t dance?” Bucky asks—which is not at all what Steve had been expecting. “With Mary Lou?”

Bucky had found them a pair of girls to go dancing with last night, and as usual, Bucky and his date got on swimmingly.

Steve and his date, however… different story. 

“Nah, Buck,” Steve says, wishing his pale Irish complexion didn’t color up so easily. He knows he’s the same shade of red as a fire truck, but there’s nothing he can do about it, no way to force the heat down. “She didn’t wanna dance with a guy like me.”

Bucky looks absolutely bewildered, and Steve can’t figure out why. It’s not like this isn’t the exact thing that happens every damn time they go out together. He wishes, a bit furiously, that Bucky would just stop trying. “But I—I saw her give you a kiss goodnight, Stevie,” Bucky says, raising up on his elbow a bit and looking down at Steve. “So I don’t know why she wouldn’t—”

“Buck,” Steve interjects, cheeks so hot that he’s afraid he’ll combust, “that was—on the cheek, Buck. She kissed me on the cheek.” He laughs, but it’s frayed around the edges, uncomfortable. “Right after lettin’ me know it wasn’t gonna work out between us.”

The truth is, he hadn’t even really minded. How could he want a girl, when Bucky is always there in the corner of his eye? How could Steve ever want anyone else?

He doesn’t know what makes him say this next thing, but it spills out of him anyway, in awkward stops and starts. “I, uh… I ain’t never…” he clears his throat, and Bucky lowers back down again, closer than before, that little frown still between his eyes. “I never kissed a girl before, you know.”

Bucky doesn’t react, which is somehow worse than if he’d been horrified or disgusted or amused. He just lays there, eyes on Steve, chest rising up and down steadily beneath his cotton shirt.

“It’s, um.” Bucky pauses. His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip, a barely-there flash of pink that nearly overheats Steve. “It’s not as good as I always tell you it is.”

Steve turn to stare, and he injects as much disbelief into it as he can. Then he flops over on his back with a disgusted noise, covering his eyes with both palms. “Bucky,” he says, mortified, “stop lying to me. Shut the hell up.”

“‘M serious, Stevie!” Bucky says, and there’s something to his voice—an edge to it, a depth that Steve’s never heard before—that forces Steve’s hands away from his eyes, and his gaze back to Bucky’s face. He looks as embarrassed as Steve feels, but also… but also… scared?

Scared. Terrified.

“Ok, Buck,” Steve says, soothing even though he doesn’t know what’s wrong. “I believe you.”

“Not kissing in general,” Bucky babbles. “I think it’s good, as a whole, I just.”

“Bucky,” Steve starts, and has no idea what to say.

“I always thought,” Bucky says as if Steve hadn’t spoken, and his voice is barely more than a whisper now, so Steve props himself up like Bucky had done earlier, looking down at him in concern as his own discomfort melts away, “I always thought it might be better with a man.”

“A—” Steve’s voice is faint. “A man,” he repeats.

Bucky’s blushing just as brightly as Steve was. He glows against their white sheets. He nods.

Steve’s hands are shaking, he can feel it, shaking hard enough that he’s almost scared he’ll break Bucky if he reaches out and touches him. He does it anyway.

Slender palm pressed to Bucky’s chest, right over his heart. It’s absolutely racing.

“Stevie,” Bucky rasps, and his own hand comes up to cover Steve’s, shaking just as badly. “Please…”

“Any man in particular?” Steve gets out, somehow still speaking past the jump of his pulse in his throat.

Hair rasping upon the pillow, Bucky nods. His eyes are enormous. “You gotta know,” he whispers, notching his fingers between Steve’s and holding tight. “Steve, you gotta know that I—that—”

Steve raises himself up, and then he lowers himself down, and then he kisses him.

Soft, soft, soft. Lips against lips, the gentlest pressure. Bucky’s mouth feels like velvet beneath Steve’s, smooth and hot and luxurious, like something Steve shouldn’t be allowed to touch. Their lips catch, drag a little as Steve pulls away.

Bucky’s eyes are closed.

“I always thought it might be better with you,” Steve whispers, and it’s as much a confession as a come-on, as much a promise as a plea. His whole body is vibrating with the reality of this secret being out in the open—with the reality of this secret being one that they share between them. He wants to yell. He wants to kiss Bucky again.

He decides upon latter.

A hand on Bucky’s jaw—pinpricks of stubble worrying at Steve’s palm—and he turns Bucky’s face towards him as he guides their lips back together, and Bucky’s body follows. Bucky slips an arm around Steve’s waist, and Steve curls his fingers in the fabric of Bucky’s shirt; Bucky has hands in Steve’s hair, and Steve slots their legs together beneath the covers.

Bucky makes tiny noises in the back of his throat as Steve kisses him, and nudges the seam of Steve’s lips open gently, barely letting his tongue slip inside. Steve’s blood sings.

It is so, so good. Better than Steve ever could have imagined. He is never gonna be able to go back.

“Want you so much, Stevie,” Bucky murmurs, and Steve nips his bottom lip, getting a sharp gasp out of him.

Good thing he’s always been a fast learner.

“You’ve got me, Buck,” he promises, letting Bucky roll to his back, settling himself between Bucky’s spread legs and taking advantage of the new angle to kiss down the column of Bucky’s throat. He smiles against Bucky’s burning skin. “You’ve got me.”


	16. Day 16: Super Powers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No, I’m…” the man begins, and then trails off, staring awkwardly at Bucky. 
> 
> Bucky stares blankly back. There’s something familiar about that face— 
> 
> He gasps. The man smiles a bit, tiny and oddly sad. 
> 
> “Was wondering when you’d notice,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Sixteen, Super Powers: An AU in which your OTP has super powers. Are they a hero/sidekick duo? Are they archenemies? Are they both villains?
> 
> I went with shrunkyclunks because... that's close, right? right.

Bucky shuffles forward in the slow-moving line, scrolling through his twitter as the people in front of him slowly board the plane. It’s taking a long time; there’s a bit of a hold up a few people in front of him—something about tickets, something about someone in the wrong seats—but Bucky doesn’t pay any attention. He’s surviving on three hours of sleep and twice that many cups of coffee. He doesn’t have the mental capacity for this shit today. 

The line starts moving again, apologetically quickly, Bucky thinks, and in just a few minutes he’s at his seat, stowing his carry-on and flicking his sunglasses off. Bucky has the aisle seat, whoop-dee-doo, and he doesn’t spare his seatmate more than a glance as he goes to sit down—but he does a double take at what he catches in that glance, neck whipping back quick enough that he loses his balance and topples down on his ass, sprawled against the person’s (not small) shoulder.

“Omigod,” he erupts.

Bucky usually has great balance. He’s usually one smooth motherfucker. He  _ is. _

But it’s just that. Well. This guy is really,  _ reallyreally _ hot.

Bucky scrambles backwards, pushing against the man’s arm and scooting away as his cheeks flame. His eyes try to land anywhere but for on his seatmate; his brain quickly starts going through all of the ways he can possibly jump out of the window once the plane takes off and never be seen again.

“Are you alright?”

The man has set one of his huge, warm hands on the bare skin of Bucky’s wrist, and his fingers are calloused and strong.

_ He could break my fucking arm, _ Bucky thinks, and is honest-to-god too tired to even be ashamed of thinking that’s sexy.

“Uh,” Bucky says, mouth having trouble filtering through all of the thoughts in his brain. “Yeah, I’m… I’m so sorry.”

The man still hasn’t moved his hand. Bucky finally looks at him, and he snatches it away, blushing bright.

Fuck. That’s a good look, too.

“No, I’m…” the man begins, and then trails off, staring awkwardly at Bucky.

Bucky stares blankly back. There’s something familiar about that face—

He gasps. The man smiles a bit, tiny and oddly sad.

“Was wondering when you’d notice,” he says.

“Steve Rogers!” Bucky says, like the complete idiot he is, but he makes sure to keep his voice to a whisper as he does so. The poor guy is just trying to ride on a plane—probably heading back to New York, just like Bucky is. He doesn’t wanna be noticed by a million people asking for autographs and selfies. “Shit, I fell on top of America’s golden boy.”

Steve looks reluctantly amused, grin widening even as his blush deepens. “I’m not,” he says, and then, gesturing self-deprecatingly at his torso, “It’s not like I can’t take it.”

Bucky huffs out a laugh at this, settling back in his seat. “No,” he says, and his eyes dart to the span of Steve’s chest, the dip of Steve’s waist, before he catches himself. “I suppose it’s not.”

Steve is still sitting turned towards Bucky, and as Bucky watches him, he can see that something isn’t quite right. There’s a stiffness to his movements, a quality to every shift of his muscles like he’s trying to appear smaller than he actually is. He looks… nervous. Nothing like the patriotically confident guy Bucky is used to seeing on news reels, fighting aliens with one hand and rescuing civilians with the other. His smile is sweet, and his face is the most handsome one Bucky has ever seen—but his eyes are so, so tired.

“Everything ok?” Bucky asks, once again throwing propriety to the wind as he feels himself frown. It is really, definitely not his place to be asking these kind of questions. “You don’t have to answer, it’s just, you look a little…”

“Uncomfortable?” Steve throws out, grin tightening.

“Sure,” Bucky says.

“Um, well it’s—it’s just.” Steve stumbles over his words, stuttering slightly. Bucky can’t believe this is happening to him. “This is only my second time flying since… you know.”

Bucky  _ does _ know. Every person in America knows. How Steve Rogers, Captain America, crashed the Valkyrie into the sea in what Bucky has always considered to be a heroically stupid move, saving the world in the process. If Bucky had known him then, he always thought, he would have kept Steve locked in a bulletproof bubble somewhere. The man has a self-destructive streak that is evident from watching three seconds of him fighting.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky swears softly, watching as Steve’s smile completely falls away. He’s pale under that fast-fading flush, and the hand that was gripping Bucky so tightly a few moments ago is now holding the arm rest between them with even more force. Bucky is afraid the plastic is going to crack under the strain. “But why are you alone? Shouldn’t the other Avengers be with you?”

“Had to stay and clean up, get things situated,” Steve says. In the aisle between them, the flight attendant begins going through safety procedures, her movements deliberate and precise, and Steve tenses. He knows what comes next. “It’s best if I do it. I’m the calmest,” he adds, laughing a little, but Bucky doesn’t see one thing funny about it.

So he’s all by himself. The man died in a plane crash only what probably seems like a year ago to him, and he’s alone now in one.

Ok. Bucky would put him in that bulletproof bubble  _ now,  _ if Steve was willing.

The flight attendant is gone. The plane lurches.

Steve doesn’t really move, his expression doesn’t really change—but every bit of color that was in his face fades away, and his jaw clenches so tightly that the muscle there jumps, and the plastic arm rest groans.

“Hey, it’s ok,” Bucky says uselessly, and sets his hand upon Steve’s, feeling the bones beneath Steve’s thin skin shift and change and tighten under his touch. “You should probably take a breath—yeah, you should definitely breathe, there you go, that’s a good idea.”

Steve looks so painfully embarrassed. His blue, blue eyes fall shut as he sits back in his seat, and Bucky notices how long and how very golden his eyelashes are. He would almost appear asleep, if not for the taught line of tension that thrums throughout him.

“Sorry,” he says, breathless. “Hell.”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Bucky jokes in a strained voice, trying his best to lighten the mood, but then winces because Steve’s mother is fucking  _ dead. _

Steve tries to laugh at him, because he’s polite like that. It comes out sounding more like a wheeze.

“What can I do?” Bucky asks him under his breath, pressing a little on the hand under his as the plastic makes another horrible noise. Steve’s grip loosens slightly, but his eyes stay closed.

“Just—just—what’s your name?”

“Bucky,” he supplies readily.

“Bucky,” Steve repeats, and if circumstances were slightly different, Bucky would probably melt into a puddle of over caffeinated goo at the sound of his name on Steve’s smooth voice, because  _ wow.  _ “Remind me what day it is? If you don’t mind? What—what year?”

Bucky feels angry at a bunch of superheroes he’s never met and overprotective about another superhero he’s only met once and also like he shouldn’t. That doesn’t change anything.

“‘Course,” he murmurs, keeping his voice steady, keeping his voice low. The plane is tilting upwards on an angle that freaks everybody out, even if they won’t admit it—and must especially freak out someone with Steve’s set of circumstances. “Today is January fourth, 2013. You’re heading home to New York, and you can tell it’s the twenty-first century because…” he scrambles to find something, finally reaching for the earbuds looped around his neck. He hands one to Steve, and Steve opens his eyes long enough to slip it into his ear. “Beyoncé,” Bucky says with a smile, hitting play on his music.

Steve gives him a look that is equal parts amusement, incredulity, and lingering terror.

The plane has steadied out by now, the ride is smooth and even. Steve’s still breathing a bit too quickly for Bucky’s liking but he doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out anymore, which is good. Instead, he is back to looking mortified.

“Bucky I am so sorry,” Steve says, all in a rush, to his lap.

Bucky doesn’t answer. Steve goes to pull his hand away, and Bucky lets him, because he’s not an asshole, but he gives it a quick pat, a gentle touch—and when Steve meets his eyes, he makes sure that he’s smiling.

“Listen,” Bucky says quietly. “Steve. It is so, completely fine. Now, settle back and listen to Queen B’s dulcet tones, my friend, and maybe try to take a nap, yeah?”

Steve blinks at him, ridiculous eyelashes brushing his cheeks as he does. His smile is shaky, but it’s emerging.

“Thank you,” he says.

Bucky winks at him, and then settles back in his seat, turning the volume up a bit.

***

They doze off and on throughout the trip, but mostly they talk.

Steve is… oh god.  _ Perfect _ is what Bucky’s heart wants to say, but  _ really really fantastic  _ is what his more rational brain interjects with. He’s funny, and sweet, and smart—and hot as hell. Bucky is maybe a quarter of the way in love with him already, and it’s not hero worship: he’s never been a Captain America guy.

When the plane lands, Bucky grabs Steve’s hand again, and Steve doesn’t protest. “2013,” Bucky murmurs, and turns his music up, and finally, they’re on the ground.

They sit still as the rest of the passengers file past them. They’re quiet.

“Listen, Bucky,” Steve says, and suddenly he seems more nervous than he’d been before the plane took off, although in a very different way. He’s taken his iphone out of his pocket and he flips it over and over in one hand, looking down at it. His chest hitches with a fast breath. “I’ve really enjoyed talking to you, and even though I kinda freaked out on you there, you were nice about it, and you’re funny and smart and I don’t really know anybody except for the rest of my team and I was wondering… I was wondering if I could get your number?”

Bucky smiles.   


	17. Day 17: Double Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I told Becca we were dating so you have to go to my Aunt’s New Year’s party with me so she won’t find out I lied,” Bucky says, all in a rush. 
> 
> Steve blinks at him. “You what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Seventeen, Double Date: Your OTP going on a double date with two of their friends. Are they out to dinner? A movie? What’s the other couple like? Do they get along well with your OTP?
> 
> um. i. completely forgot about the prompt. like, TOTALLY. alsdfjlsdf

Bucky halfheartedly listens to his sister ramble on through the phone that’s pressed to his ear. 

It’s kind of late, and Steve was up early this morning to teach a class, so he’s dozing on the opposite end of the couch from Bucky, skinny legs tangled up with Bucky’s under the blanket they’re sharing. Bucky answers Becca’s questions with softly murmured hums of agreement, interrupts her diatribes with similar noises just to let her know he’s listening as he spends equal amounts of time watching the documentary about starfish on the television, and Steve’s sleeping face.

“...and you have a date to bring to Aunt Carol’s party on Thursday, right? Remember, you promised Jim and I we wouldn’t have to go alone.”

Bucky freezes, eyes caught on Steve. He presses the phone very tightly to his ear.

“Er?” he says weakly.

“Bucky!” Becca snaps, sounding so like their mother in that moment that Bucky instinctively hangs his head in shame.

“No, no, I do!” he hisses in a whisper, accompanied by a lot of wavey hand movements even though she can’t see him. “It’s um—it’s—” his eyes fall on Steve.

Three things Steve Rogers is to Bucky Barnes:

 

  1. Best friend
  2. Roomate
  3. Love of his goddamn life



 

Steve unaware of one of these things. You might be able to guess which it is.   

“Steve,” Bucky finishes, therefore sealing his face and cementing him in time as the Worst Best Friend Ever.

Becca is silent on the other end of the line for one second, which is one seconds too many for Bucky’s paranoid ass. 

“We didn’t tell anybody because we wanted to take things slow, see where we wanted to head with this, but, um—”

“Bucky,” she interrupts, and Bucky is horrified to hear that she sounds  _ tearful.  _ “Oh, Bucky, I am so  _ happy for you. _ We’ve all been waiting for this for  _ years,  _ Bucky, you have no idea how happy Ma is gonna be about this—”

“No you can’t tell Ma yet!” Bucky insists, feeling a vaguely hysterical laugh bubble up in the back of his throat. Before him, Steve is resting peacefully, the usual frown he wears smoothed away from his pale brow, his thin hands clutching the blanket to his chest, and Bucky’s stomach is tying itself into knots. “We want it to be a surprise,” he finishes lamely.

His sister is too excited to notice anything off in his voice. “Of course not, big brother,” she says, and her smile is clear in the lightness of her tone. Bucky feels like shit. “You and Steve take your time.” She sighs, and then laughs, and Bucky closes his eyes in pain. “We always knew you two were made for each other; it was obvious how much you loved him, and how much he loved you. It was agony waiting for this, Bucky, sheer torture.”

He laughs awkwardly, wondering if his heart is going to beat straight out of his chest. He didn’t think he was so bad at hiding it. Oh, god.

Somehow, he makes it to the end of the conversation without telling any more vast and damning lies. Steve wakes up just as Bucky is saying goodbye, blinking a little bit dazedly up at Bucky and smiling in the bare way he only does when he’s absolutely happy when Bucky hangs up the phone.

Bucky is a fucking  _ idiot. _

“Who was that?” Steve mumbles through a yawn, stretching his legs down a little and accidentally kicking at Bucky’s hip.    

“Becca,” Bucky answers, distracted. “Steve. Listen.”

Steve’s smile fades into a frown. He sits up, blanket pooling around his waist, and squint at Bucky. “You ok?”

“I told Becca we were dating so you have to go to my Aunt’s New Year’s party with me so she won’t find out I lied,” Bucky says, all in a rush.

Steve blinks at him. “You  _ what?” _

Bucky takes a breath. It shakes. “I told Becca we were—”

“No,” Steve says, holding up a hand to stop Bucky’s flow of words and pressing his other to his forehead. “No, sorry, I got it the first time. Just—just  _ why _ , Bucky?”

Bucky buries his flaming face in his hand, peeking out at Steve through the cracks between his fingers. “Because I’m tired of listening to my family rag on me for not dating anyone?”

_ And I’m in love with you, _ he thinks,  _ so of course you’re the first person that came to mind because you’re the only person I’ve actually wanted to date for most of our natural lives. _

He doesn’t say that.

Steve takes in a deep breath and then blows it out loudly, his thin cheeks round with air. He scratches the top of his head, messing his bangs up, and then leans back against the couch cushions, still looking at Bucky.

“Ok,” he says, and his voice does that thing it always does when he’s trying to take control of a situation. “This is fine. One night, right?”

Bucky nods, mute.

“One night,” Steve repeats, nodding back. They look like a couple of idiots, nodding their heads back and forth at each other by the blue glow of the television. “I can date you for one night.”

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbles, feeling his heart sink straight down to the soles of his feet. It’s not like he expected Steve to be happy about this—in fact, he was anticipating a much worse reaction that the one he’s gotten so far—but it still stings a bit at how obviously reluctant Steve is to pretend for even one night. “I’m stupid.”

“Not stupid,” Steve says. He prods at Bucky’s hip with his toes again, deliberately this time, and gives him a smile that is sickly at best, upset at worst. “Not  _ all _ the time.”

“Ha ha,” Bucky says flatly.

“Seriously, Buck,” Steve says, softer now, and stretches his hand across the cushion to rest it on Bucky’s thigh, right above his knee. He squeezes gently. “It’ll be fine.”

***

It is not fine. It is  _ so _ not fine.

Aunt Carol is a rich asshole with a fucking  _ penthouse,  _ so Bucky and Steve are required by law or something to wear suits, and Steve—Steve looks absolutely beautiful. It’s light gray and it makes his eyes stand out so blue as he grins at Bucky in elevator on the way up, and Bucky’s stomach flips again, and again, and again.

He catches a glance of the two of them, side by side, in the polished chrome of the elevator, and he wishes he hadn’t. He feels like he shouldn’t even be seen standing next to Steve—beautiful, perfect Steve. Especially not with the left sleeve of his own dark blue suit pinned up around what’s left of his arm, and his hair in a little bun, messy no matter how long he’d spent on it, and the shadows that have made their home under his eyes and refuse to leave. Especially not with this secret he’s carrying in his heart.  

“C’mon, Buck,” Steve says quietly, conscious of the three other people they share the elevator with. He stands close to Bucky, his presence a warm line of almost-there contact that runs along Bucky’s side, and Bucky would just have to lean down a very little bit to kiss him. “Gimme a smile. You look like you’re headed to your death.”

Bucky wishes he were. That would be preferable to whatever bizzarre, self-inflicted for of tortue he’s getting ready to endure right now.

“Sorry,” he says automatically, trying his best to give Steve a grin. He has the horrible suspicion that he falls flat. “Just nervous, I guess.”

The elevator comes to a halt on the top floor, and Steve and Bucky hang back as the rest of the people get out before them.

“Don’t be,” Steve says. He grabs Bucky’s hand, brash and fast and bold just like he always is, and Bucky nearly falls to the floor in surprise. Steve’s hand is warm, and his grip is strong. “Nobody’s gonna find us out. Just stick close to me, don’t freak out when I touch you, and, I don’t know, think about baseball or something.” He smiles, but it’s smaller, and Bucky wonders why the hell Steve seems to think Bucky  _ wouldn’t _ want to touch him, that is the  _ opposite  _ of Bucky’s problem. “It’s just a couple hours. Then we can forget all about this.”

“Steve—” Bucky starts, but the doors are closing and they have to get out, and then they are swept along in the trail of people heading into Aunt Carol’s apartment.

She greets them at the door: a kiss on the cheek for each of them, along with the tacky feeling of her lipstick on Bucky’s skin, and the scent of whatever perfume seventy-year-old art collector’s like to wear.

“Steven,” Aunt Carol says, taking one of Steve’s hands in both of her own and leaning in close. Her gray hair stands around her head in a frizz of curls, and she’s taller than Steve in her rickety heels. “We are so, so happy that you and Bucky pulled your heads out of your asses.”

Steve laughs, sharp and startled; Bucky grabs Steve’s shoulder and pulls him, with the air of one rescuing someone from imminent danger, away from his aunt as fast as he can, calling thanks and giving their excuses over his shoulder. Steve, still a little shocked, stumbles along.

And so it goes as they make their way through the crowded room. Bucky’s various relatives stop them with huge smiles and bright eyes, saying how happy they are, how glad, how proud. Bucky can feel himself stiffening with every single encounter, can feel how his smiles get tighter and his words get sharper, and he just wants to turn around and leave—

Steve’s arm, firm and sudden, sliding around Bucky’s waist. He leans against Bucky’s left side, as easy as anything. 

“Steve,” Bucky says without meaning to, right in the middle of the conversation Steve has been having with one of Bucky’s cousins about clean energy and also, with poorly-disguised allusions, Steve and Bucky’s sex life. His voice comes out sounding thin and breathy, lower than usual. Steve looks up at him, and Bucky’s cousin seems to take the hint. She wanders away, eyebrows waggling.

“Alright?”

Steve’s hand fits perfectly in the dip of Bucky’s waist. His eyes are clear and steady as he looks up at Bucky, and Bucky can’t look away.

“Fine,” Bucky murmurs, and dips forward to press a very fast, very soft kiss to the corner of Steve’s mouth before he can talk himself out of it.

Steve’s always been an easy blusher, and that hasn’t changed. He lights up like a stop light as Bucky lifts his head away, but he’s smiling, and it’s beautiful.

“ _ Buck, _ ” Steve says, the word half-lost in a laugh.

“Just thought I should…” Bucky mumbles, liking so  _ so much _ the way Steve pulls him closer. “You know, keeping up appearances and…”

Steve laughs again, louder this time, but Bucky isn’t offended; he knows when Stevie is laughing  _ at  _ him, and this definitely isn’t one of those times. “Sure, Bucky,” he says, and his low voice, always too big for his small frame, is soft and perfect for the little circle of space they occupy. “You do whatever you gotta do.”

Becca finds them next. They’re standing in the hallway running off of the main room, and Bucky’s arm is around Steve’s waist this time as Steve sips at a glass of champagne and admires the floor-to-ceiling paintings that line the hall, talking as fervently as he does whenever he’s presented with art. Bucky is currently in the process of falling deeper in love with him.

“Hey, nerds,” Becca says as she comes up beside them, grin splitting her face. Bucky nods at her, not willing to stop touching Steve long enough to wave, and Steve gives her a wide, happy smile.

“Hey, Becs,” Bucky says. His voice echoes loudly, and so he lowers it, not wanting to hurt Steve’s bad ear the way some sharp noises do. “You look great.”

“You look better,” Becca says, grin turning sly.

“This original Pollock looks best,” Steve quips, gesturing to the canvas he’s been admiring with his half-full champagne glass. “Seriously, how does your aunt own all of this?”

“Won the lottery one year,” Becca says, and Bucky can’t actually remember whether that’s true or not. “Listen, I know you’re probably sick of hearing this,” Becca says, “but I’m so happy for you two. I’m honestly astounded that this is happening. I always thought you’d both pine in secret until you died of natural causes or I killed you.”

They both laugh, but it’s strained, hoarse. Becca doesn’t seem to pick up on it.

***

A minute until the new year. Everyone is counting down.

Bucky and Steve stand on the balcony outside, listening to the chorus of voices float out from inside the open doors.

“Thanks for coming with me, Stevie,” Bucky says quietly. They’re leaning against the railing, just a few inches of space between them, looking out over the busy city streets. Above the skyline, fireworks bloom, a cacophony of light that rains down upon them in a glittering show, and it reflects like a kaleidoscope in Steve’s eyes.

Steve knocks his shoulder against Bucky’s, and then he leaves it there. “Sure thing, Buck,” he whispers. “I… I had fun.”

_ Ten. _

_ Nine. _

_ Eight. _

Bucky turns inwards, facing Steve, and Steve mirrors his position. They are very close.

“I did too,” Bucky murmurs, even though that’s sort of a lie. “Well,” he amends. “With you, I did.”

_ Five. _

_ Four. _

_ Three. _

Steve’s smile is brighter than every star in the sky. He is lovely.

“Me, too.”

_ Two. _

_ One. _

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Steve says, and then his hand is curled in Bucky’s collar and he’s pulling him in close, and pressing their lips together, and kissing him.

“Not wrong,” Bucky whispers when he can breathe again. “Not wrong not wrong not—”

Steve kisses him again, and Bucky kisses back this time, hand sliding up Steve’s spine and resting in the middle of his back. He holds him close as Steve drapes all over Bucky’s front, bracing himself against the balcony rail as his knees go weak. There is thunder in his ears, and he doesn’t know if it’s the shower of fireworks or the pounding of his own heart.

“Happy New Year, Buck,” Steve says against Bucky’s lips, but Bucky is too busy to answer.  


	18. Day 18: Holding Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky, eyes bright, turns to Steve. He’s wearing one of Steve’s sweatshirts, the sleeves pushed back, and it’s long on him, makes him look soft and good to hug. His leggings have a hidden pocket in the waistband that he showed Steve with excitement before they set off this afternoon. 
> 
> “Nice day,” Steve comments, because he feels like he should do something, say something, stop staring at Bucky with mindless adoration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Eighteen, Holding Hands: Your OTP holding hands. Why are they holding hands? Is it just because, or is one of them in danger somehow?
> 
> ah yes, my favorite pastime: pretending that nothing is canon after the winter soldier

Bucky starts it. That’s what Steve mantains. 

Not that it’s something Steve wouldn’t want to take credit for—quite the opposite, really. Honestly he just thinks it’s polite to give credit where credit is due, and all that. You know. Manners.

So. Bucky starts it.

They are eating breakfast when it happens.  Or rather: Steve is eating breakfast, leaning over the sink and letting the crumbs of his bagel fall into the stainless-steel basin, and Bucky is slumped against the counter next to him, thick blanket wrapped around his shoulders, clutching a cup of coffee and peering blearily out at Steve from behind the curtain of his uncombed hair.

Steve smiles at him cheerfully. Today, he has decided, is a good day, because it’s nearly seven-thirty and he hasn’t been called away on a mission, and the sun is shining over New York, turning the city into something tall and glittering that Steve can look down upon from out the Tower window. Because Bucky is here next to him, alive and sleepy and real.

“Hungry?” Steve asks, nudging the paper sack full of fresh bagels he picked up on his run this morning towards Bucky as he pops his last bite into his mouth and chews. “I got plenty,” he mumbles through a mouth full of bread.

“Shut your goddamn mouth while you chew, you mutt,” Bucky growls at him, and Steve stares. Bucky looks so  _ cute, _ staring up at Steve like that, hair in his face, ridiculously full pout out on display.

Steve beams fondly.

“Shut  _ up,” _ Bucky groans, but Steve can see the flicker of a shy smile edging his lips before he tucks himself right into the curve of Steve’s shoulder, head nestled somewhere in the region of Steve’s collar bone.

Steve freezes. He’s glad he’s swallowed that last bite of bagel—surely he’d have choked to death by now, if not.

It’s just that. It’s just that— 

It’s just that Bucky hasn’t touched Steve like this since 1945.

Sure, they’ve brushed up against each other in their narrow hallway, or smacked at each other’s hands when reaching for the last slice of pizza. But the most prolonged amount of contact Steve has had with Bucky since he’s been back has been when Bucky was trying to murder him, so really, that hardly counts. Bucky doesn’t like to be touched—he hasn’t said so, but Steve’s gathered it from the way he stiffens up whenever anybody comes near him—and Steve has respected that, of course he has.

He’s just happy to have Bucky back. He doesn’t need anything else from him.

But  _ this.  _ Oh, god. It’s hard to resist something that you’ve been longing for forever, no matter how shameful that may be.

Steve doesn’t move, doesn’t move, doesn’t move; and then Bucky lets out a quiet little sigh and sinks against him, limbs loose, breath deep, spine lax, and Steve can’t help but to bring his arms up around Bucky’s back and hold him.

It’s a hug now, no bones about it. It’s Wednesday morning, and Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers are alive, and they are hugging in their kitchen.

Bucky pulls away after a few minutes, slipping out of Steve’s arms with a casual little shrug as if this happens all of the time, and then dipping his hand into the bag of bagels. He pulls one out, and takes a bite out of the side of it like it’s an apple.

Steve is laughing too hard for the moment to be anything but perfect.

***

They’re curled up on opposite ends of the couch a few days later, watching a movie called  _ The Lion King  _ that is making Steve teary-eyed.

Bucky has been silent throughout the movie, burrowed under his customary layer of about seven hundred blankets, but that isn’t odd; he isn’t much one for talking in this century, and never has been during films. He loves watching the stories unfold on screen before his eyes, and Steve loves watching him watch.

But now, as the little cartoon lion is prancing and singing with a warthog and a meerkat, Bucky glances at Steve out of the corner of his eyes over and over again, gaze darting from the screen to Steve and back again often enough that Steve says something.

“You ok, Buck?”

Bucky looks away quickly, eyes seemingly riveted upon the screen, but he sits up and grabs the half-empty bowl of popcorn that’s sitting on the empty cushion between them. He dumps it with a clang upon the coffee table.

And then he scoots all the way down the couch, a bundle of soft blankets and big pale eyes, and dumps himself against Steve’s side.

Steve lets out a soft little “Ooof,” but he doesn’t allow himself any time to be surprised; instead, he wraps his arm around Bucky’s shoulders almost immediately, not willing to waste any time and maybe miss this wonderful moment of longed-for contact.

The top of Bucky’s head is in the general vicinity of Steve’s armpit, but Steve slumps down into the cushions until they are more easily fitted together, Bucky’s head against Steve’s chest, both of Steve’s arms comfortably around Bucky’s soft, warm middle. It feels nice enough that Steve could cry.

“Mmmmmm,” Bucky hums—a long, drawn-out sound that seems to come from deep in the middle of his chest, involuntary, like a purr. He snuggles closer, and his eyes drift shut.

An hour later when the credits roll, Bucky is fast asleep, and Steve could not tell you what happened in the last half of the movie if his life depended upon it.

***

Central Park is pretty this time of year; the foliage is all shades of orange and red and yellow, fiery and vivid, and Bucky looks beautiful as they run under the bower, his hair catching the light just so, reflecting it back in a golden gleam.

By some unspoken agreement, Steve and Bucky slow to a light jog, and then a walk, Bucky panting rather more heavily than Steve as the sweat dries on their skin with cool autumn air.

Bucky, eyes bright, turns to Steve. He’s wearing one of Steve’s sweatshirts, the sleeves pushed back, and it’s long on him, makes him look soft and good to hug. His leggings have a hidden pocket in the waistband that he showed Steve with excitement before they set off this afternoon.

“Nice day,” Steve comments, because he feels like he should do something, say something, stop staring at Bucky with mindless adoration.

Bucky sees through him. He always does. “Hmm,” he says, noncommittal, and slides his hand into Steve’s. He swings their arms together in the air between them as they walk, looking down at their clasped hands with a small smile.

There’s a moment where Steve wonders if he should ask about it. Mention it.

But no, he thinks, as Bucky catches sight of a pair of kids failing to skateboard across the sidewalk and laughing until tears gather in the corner of his eyes, no. It’ll come up when it should come up. For now, they are fine.


	19. Day 19: Spellbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shape darts out from behind a fallen log, bounding with enthusiasm across Bucky’s yard and coming to stop in the middle of a patch of swiftly-yellowing grass, staring up at him with luminous green eyes.
> 
> Bucky smiles. A cat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Nineteen, Spellbound: An AU in which your OTP has magical abilities. Are they witches/wizards? How do they use their powers?

Bucky sighs as he leans forward on the rail of his deck, forearms resting on the lightly splintered wood. It’s a cool autumn evening; the trees are just starting to turn, and the sunset that shines through the burnished leaves casts a golden glow over everything. In the distance,  an owl’s low sound echoes across the treeline.

It was a good idea to move out here. Since Bucky got back from the war, he hasn’t liked loud noises and bright lights and crowded places, and his little apartment in Brooklyn had put him entirely too close to all three of those things. But now that he’s upstate, everything that had seemed so bright and vivid and fast has cooled off, slowed down; the days are longer here, the shadows cast by tree trunks deeper than ones cast by buildings, and there is no one to stare at the place where Bucky’s arm should be.

Hands cupped around a cup of tea, Bucky lets his gaze wander to the bank of trees before him, losing himself a little bit in the elegant sway of branches in the wind. His house is right in the middle of a patch of thick woods, twenty minutes removed from anything that can be called a town, at least ten from the nearest residence, and he likes it that way. It’s quieter without other human voices around.

Sometimes too quiet. The alternative isn’t nice to contemplate either, though, so he is thankful for what he does have.

As Bucky stares without focus into the thicket, he catches movement in the corner of his eye, and his gaze snaps promptly to attention. There are coyotes out here sometimes, wandered in too close to his back yard from their dens, and a day hasn’t gone by yet that there haven’t been any deer poking around the woodline—and of course there are the usual squirrels, rabbits back in the spring and early summer, birds of all sizes and shapes and once, memorably, a whole family of dark orange foxes—

A shape darts out from behind a fallen log, bounding with enthusiasm across Bucky’s yard and coming to stop in the middle of a patch of swiftly-yellowing grass, staring up at him with luminous green eyes.

Bucky smiles. A cat.

He sets his tea on the railing and then descends the steps leading down from his deck slowly, making sure to place his feet as lightly as possible on the particularly squeaky boards as he comes closer to the animal.

He had a cat for a while, before he went off to Afghanistan. Alpine. Fluffy in much the same way that this cat is, but bright white, her tail a little longer. Bucky had loved her very much. She died while he was away.

“Here, kitty,” he says softly, crouching down a few feet away from her and holding out his hand for her to sniff at. He drops to his knees, and the grass is wet through the ripped places in his jeans, but he doesn’t care because she pads over to him with the air of one doing a great favor, rubbing her head against the base of his palm.

Her fur is soft, soft, soft. Bucky’s smile is splitting his face. He can’t remember the last time he was this happy about something.

“I’m surprised she’s letting you touch her. Natasha doesn’t like strangers.”

Startling, Bucky falls back on his behind, and he hates the way his hand leaves the cat and reaches for a gun that isn’t there.

“Oh! I’m so sorry.”

There is a  _ person  _ in Bucky’s backyard now, standing half in shadow so that all he can see is the sun glinting off of their golden hair, and also that they are very short.

Natasha is sitting exactly where Bucky left her, seemingly not startled at all. She licks her paw.

“Who the hell are you?” Bucky gasps, his voice coming out rough and angry with the strength of his scare. He doesn’t sound like his pulse is threatening to burst from his skin.

The person rushes towards Bucky, hands out, and as they emerge into the dying sunlight Bucky has to keep himself from gasping all over again, because he never expected the intruder to be  _ beautiful. _

He’s slight, and small, with eyes the color of cornflowers and a mouth that looks too big for his face, but in a perfect way. The sweater he is wearing is loose, flows around him exactly like it’s meant to.

Sometimes, Bucky’s shoulders get stuck in sweaters and he has to cut himself out.

“I’m so sorry,” says the intruder once more, holding out his hand like he’s trying to help Bucky up. Bucky probably has a ninety pounds on this kid. There is no  _ way.  _ “Everyone always says I’m bad at lurking, and here I am,  _ lurking. _ ”

“And trespassing,” says Bucky as he climbs to his feet on his own, and damn, he sounds like an asshole again. “I mean. That is to say. This is my yard.”

The man nods like Bucky is making perfect sense, stepping back neatly as Bucky stands. Bucky tries not to wince at the way he towers above him, feeling awkward and enormous. God, he just wanted to pet a cat.

“I know,” says the man. He’s staring up at Bucky, his chin tipped up a little bit, and Bucky watches as he rings a pair of very elegant hands. “I was following Natasha, you see, she likes escaping more than she likes me apparently, and I wasn’t paying attention to property markings.” He frowns, an expression that collects more in his brow than anywhere else, his eyebrows collecting over the slope of his nose. “I need her for a spell. This was a very inconvenient night for her to run.”

Bucky is staring. He knows he is. Staring like a big dumb idiot—which, coupled with the ripped jeans and old flannel he’s wearing, probably make him look even worse than just the staring could—but he cannot physically force himself to stop, even though out of the corner of his eye he can see Natasha looking at them both with disdain.

“A.” He stops. He can’t even get the full sentence out. “A spell. A spell? A spell.”

Ugh. That was too many times. Shit.  _ Words _ .

But the man just nods again, and his bangs flop over a little into his eyes, and he brushes them back with one of those lovely hands, and Bucky’s stomach flips over and over and over itself, and he stares and stares.

“Um,” says the man, but the word seems more like an afterthought than anything—he looks like he’s very clearly made up his mind. Made it up so firmly, in fact, that Bucky doubts he could change it if he wanted to.

The man takes a step closer to Bucky (the top of his head barely comes to Bucky’s shoulder, Bucky could lift him up so easily, even with just one arm, Bucky needs to stop thinking about things like that) and sticks out his hand again, this time with significantly more purpose. “I’m Steve Rogers,” he says firmly, and he meets Bucky’s eyes in such a way that just  _ threatens  _ Bucky to make fun of him for this next part. “I’m your neighbor. I’m also a witch.”

It takes Bucky a moment too long to realize Steve Rogers means for him to  _ shake _ that hand. He does, heart picking up speed at the way Steve’s skin feels against him—smooth in comparison to Bucky’s gun-calloused hands, warm but not clammy like Bucky—and then takes one deep breath. Two.

“Bucky,” he says, cringing at the abruptness. His voice is thin, so he clears it, and tries again. “My name is Bucky. Barnes. I’m. Your neighbor.”

Steve smiles, and it’s the first time he’s done that, and it makes Bucky’s breath catch in his chest. It lights up Steve’s whole face. Takes it from serious and pinched to something so bright Bucky almost can’t look at him.

“Nice to meet you, Bucky,” Steve says, taking his hand out of Bucky’s—and  _ shit _ , Bucky hadn’t meant to hold on for so long—and then crossing his arms over his chest. Natasha leaps from the ground to Steve’s shoulder, and even though she looks way too big to be perched up there like that, both of them are balanced perfectly. If a cat jumped unexpectedly on Bucky, he would probably cry. “Even if it was under less than ideal circumstances.”

Bucky means to say  _ it’s no problem, Steve, I’m so glad to meet you too, please come upstairs to my house and let me fix you some tea and give Natasha a can of tuna and then keep smiling at me  _ but instead he says “What kind of spell,” voice hurried and low and not even really a question, and feels his cheeks flame beneath his beard.

But Steve doesn’t look bothered. Instead, he looks delighted.

“Oh!” he says, reaching up to scratch behind Natasha’s ears as he talks. “A blessing spell. I noticed that you just moved in, and I always bless this area when anybody new moves in—I figure it’s the nice thing to do. It’s just good luck, protection over your home, thinks like that. Simple.” He’s been smiling the whole time he’s been speaking, but now that smile flags a bit, grows wary as he peers up at Bucky. “That isn’t… creepy, is it? I didn’t have to come here or anything, that isn’t a requirement, I swear I didn’t show up here to do magic on your property. Um. Wow, this does sound bad. Sorry.”

“No, it’s, um.” Bucky clears his throat again. Steve probably thinks he has some sort of illness. “It’s fine. It’s… it’s great, actually, I think it’s so nice that you do that.”

Steve blushes this time, and his smile is sweet and slow. “Really?” he asks, rocking back and forth on his heels slightly, tipping his head as Natasha noses at the hair above his ear.

“Yeah,” says Bucky, smiling back. “Really.”

He’s surprised to find that that’s true. Maybe it should feel invasive that Steve was going to do this, maybe it should feel weird—but Steve seems so nice. Steve’s cat seems so nice. Steve hasn’t, not once, looked at Bucky’s empty shoulder, or even looked too deliberately away.

It feels good, to know that somebody has noticed Bucky for a reason other than he can shoot well, or that he’s damaged.

They stand for a moment in contemplation of each other, their eyes meeting in the quickly-purpling shade of twilight. Bucky feels a question building in his own throat, and he lets it.

“Steve,” he says, looking at Natasha as he speaks, because looking right at Steve when he smiles like that is like looking into the sun. “Would you like to come inside for a cup of tea?”

He lets himself glance at Steve, and his heart skips, but that’s ok.

“Yeah,” says Steve, stepping close, smiling bright. “Yeah, I would.”      

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ack! sorry for the delay in posting, guys! ive been at orientation for university for the past two days which was stressful and busy as heck, but im back now! ill get the missing chapters up asap<3


	20. Day 20: Surprise Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Name A Star Now!
> 
> By naming a star after a loved you, you are giving them a gift that will never go bad. Have something that exists as an eternal reminder for your love. By clicking this link—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty, Surprise Gift: One member of your OTP preparing a surprise gift for the other. How do they react? Do they almost find out about the surprise too early?

Steve is in Tony’s car when he sees it. Scrolling through a twitter account that Tony set up for him and then Steve never ever used, Steve sees the add that pops up, and clicks on it immediately.

Name A Star Now!

“You ok, Capsicle?” Tony asks him, pulling into the street in front of Avenger’s Tower and then waiting for a minute before getting out, looking over at Steve with curiosity. “You’ve gone all weird and quiet.”

Steve wonders what his face looks like. Probably bad.

“I’m fine, Tony,” he says, and he doesn’t question himself as he saves the link to his notes. He wonders how many times a day he’s allowed to lie, though, as Captain America, and thinks the answer is considerably less than his reality. “I’m fine.”

***

Name A Star Now!

By naming a star after a loved you, you are giving them a gift that will never go bad. Have something that exists as an eternal reminder for your love. By clicking this link—

***

Steve sits on his bed, phone in his hands. He is thinking. He is thinking of Bucky.

He has done that so much since waking up here, now, in a time and a place that are so jarringly different than anything he’s felt before. Bucky was always the person that was there for him when things were scary, Bucky was always the person who Steve could lean on when he felt lost—Steve doesn’t have a person like that anymore.

Even if Bucky hadn’t been that, though, Steve would still miss him. It’s like a piece of Steve is gone, and he can never get it back.

Bucky loved space so much. Steve can remember the way his eyes would light up when they walked home from a bar or a dance hall light at night, his arm slung around Steve’s thin shoulders, his eyes fixed on the night sky above them. There wasn’t as much light pollution then, and the stars were easier to see—bright in multiples over their heads.

“We’ll go there someday,” Bucky had liked to say, his smile wide, and Steve had believed him even though it seemed impossible, because every word that fell from Bucky Barnes’ lips always seemed unquestionable. “You and me.”

They hadn’t, of course. Bucky died before he was thirty, fallen in the service of a country that didn’t love and a man who did. Steve died soon after.

It didn’t stick, for Steve. He’s not sure what he thinks about that.

But this. This website, this gift—fitting, wouldn’t it be, to give Bucky his namesake in the sky?

***

They email Steve the coordinates, and he buys a telescope, and he drives and drives and drives until he reaches the Grand Canyon. Bucky always wanted come here, too.

It takes Steve a few moments of searching, but he finds the star eventually, hanging bright and unyielding to the north of the moon. It is nestled amid a cluttered carpet of other stars and planets, but Steve thinks it looks lonely—singular, and cold.

“I miss you,” he says. And then he goes back to New York.    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh, sorry
> 
> this IS a thing you can do, though! https://www.star-registration.com/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwgLLoBRDyARIsACRAZe6E8NQ4hzBvvmhSZCLTsc6-X3Ah9jZq1bGbpjM5AUGcTIdSP5O97PQaAvGbEALw_wcB


	21. Day 21: Dispute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I added your green sweater in,” says Steve, digging through the contents of a duffel bag sitting open on their bed. Bucky, leaning in the doorway, watches with impatience. Sam is staring at both of them with an entirely too knowing look on his face, and Bucky wants to bop him. “And the stupid pajama bottoms with the shield on them. And two t-shirts, because I know you hate sleeping in what you wore the day before, and your good boots and your bad boots, and—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-One, Dispute: Even people who love each other sometimes don’t see eye-to-eye. Your OTP having an argument. How did it start? How does it get resolved?

“I added your green sweater in,” says Steve, digging through the contents of a duffel bag sitting open on their bed. Bucky, leaning in the doorway, watches with impatience. Sam is staring at both of them with an entirely too knowing look on his face, and Bucky wants to bop him. “And the stupid pajama bottoms with the shield on them. And two t-shirts, because I know you hate sleeping in what you wore the day before, and your good boots and your bad boots, and—”

“Jesus Christ, Steve,” Bucky snaps, snatching the unzipped bag out from under Steve’s hand and slinging it over his shoulder. He scowls. “I can pack my own bag, I’m not completely inept.”

He feels bad immediately, even though he  _ does _ hate people treating him like he can’t do anything. He knows that wasn’t Steve’s intention, knows Steve believes in him more than anybody else and always has done, but still, the feeling of helplessness fizzles across his skin like needle pricks, and he can’t erase the grim expression from his face.

Steve blinks his big, dumb doe eyes at Bucky, hands falling loose at his sides, and Sam gives Bucky a  _ look _ and, well, shit.

“I know you’re not, Buck,” Steve says. He sounds so damn sorry. So damn sorry, and he didn’t even do anything wrong, and Bucky wants to apologize, but. But, but, but. It’s so difficult to make words work sometimes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“‘S ok,” Bucky mutters, knowing full well that it doesn’t sound genuine, and not being able to do anything about it. He hitches the bag further up over his shoulder and looks at the floor, suddenly not wanting to Steve standing there before all of that big, empty space in their bedroom. It’s the first time Bucky is leaving their apartment for a mission without Steve since he got back, and he doesn’t like the look of how absent the place will be while he is gone.

There’s a hard, cold feeling lumped in his gut, heavy and dragging.

“Don’t be an asshole, Barnes,” says Sam, following Bucky as he lopes out of the room. He’s clearly trying to lighten the mood, but there’s enough of a snap in his tone that Bucky can tell he’s serious—and what makes it worse is that Bucky knows he’s justified.

Bucky’s life would be so much easier, he thinks, if he could just hate Sam Wilson.

“Bucky’s not being an asshole,” says Steve instantly. Loyal Steve,  _ dumbass Steve.  _ God, he lets Bucky walk all over him. He let Bucky  _ shoot him _ for fuck’s sake. He packs Bucky’s clothes and he smiles at Bucky and he loves him, and Bucky’s just a dickhead.

Sam makes a loud, disbelieving noise, and lets Steve give him a hug on his way out the door. Bucky, stomach still feeling odd, stands stiff and immobile when Steve wraps him in his arms, but Steve gives him a smile anyway.

Feeling like shit, Bucky leaves behind Sam, and doesn’t look at Steve as they drive away.

***

Later, they get a hotel room, and take turns in the longest showers of their life before crashing in their respective beds. Sam is dead to the world in an instant.

Bucky, nestled in the pajama bottoms and second t-shirt Steve packed for him, lies under the covers on his side and stares at the phone in his hand.

“Call your husband,” comes Sam’s voice, with the weary tone of someone looking for nothing more than to be taken out of their misery.

“Not my husband,” Bucky says immediately, through gritted teeth. He unclenches his jaw very slowly and very carefully; cracked teeth is really not what he needs tonight.

“Call your romantic life partner, then,” says Sam, and there’s amusement in his words despite his obvious annoyance. “Or I swear to god Barnes, I will.”

Bucky makes a vague and pissed off noise at him, flopping over onto his other side so that he can glare at Sam’s face. Much more satisfying.

“In case you’re curious, no, I will not be listening in,” Sam continues, putting his headphones in and sliding down deeper into his pillows. He shuts his eyes. “Or watching.”

Bucky makes another sound. He calls Steve—

—who picks up on the second ring.  

“Bucky,” he says, and Bucky could kick himself for the fact that there’s still a regretful sort of caution in the folds of Steve’s voice, an edge that is brittle. “Hey, baby. How’d it go?”

“I’m sorry,” says Bucky instead of answering Steve’s question. He’s pissed at the way his words are thick and scratchy in his throat, but he thinks Steve probably deserves to hear it, regardless. “I’m not really mad.”

Steve pauses for a moment on the other end of the call, and in those three seconds of silence, Bucky’s shitty brain manages to come up with twice that many justifications for the fact that Steve is getting ready to say he will not forgive Bucky, he doesn’t like Bucky, he doesn’t love him.

“I know, Buck,” Steve says softly. Bucky can feel the pit of his stomach drop out, can feel the warmth that sinks in and takes the place of all the coldness that has been there. “I’m sorry too, though—I always wanna take care of you and I know that… I know that makes you feel like you can’t take care of yourself, sometimes.” Steve laughs a little. It’s the sound sunshine makes. “I should be familiar with that. It’s how I spent the first two decades of our life.”

“It’s how you still are,” Bucky says, and his eyes are closed, and he’s smiling into the pillow like a dope, but there’s no one there to see. “Punk,” he whispers.

“Jerk,” Steve hums.

They are quiet, and it’s good. Bucky can hear the sound of Steve’s deep, even breaths, and his own lungs unconsciously match the rhythm: inhale for exhale. His eyelids are heavy.

“Bed is too big without you,” Steve says quietly, sounding sleepy and a little lonely in Bucky’s ear.

“I know, sweetheart,” Bucky murmurs. “I’ll be home soon.”

“Better be,” Steve says.

“Couldn’t get rid of me if you tried,” Bucky whispers, and the fall asleep like that, phones pressed to their ears, breathing synced.


	22. Day 22: Angst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve is bird bones and stuttered gasps, the sweat of fever and the low pulse of blood beneath his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Two, Angst: Your OTP in an angsty situation. Does someone get hurt? Is it bad?
> 
> don't be put off by the prompt! this didn't even end up the angstiest one I've written yet lol

Steve dreams in colors bright enough to burn. 

They streak across his eyelids in painted flashes, a kaleidoscope of shades like the fireworks he and Bucky always watch from the roof on Steve’s birthday. His skin shivers with them, and he sweats with them, and he twists in a tangle of sick-damp sheets as he falls down, down, down.

***

There is one fixed point in the boiling sludge of Steve’s mind, there is one living thing he clings to: a hand, cool and calloused upon his own.

Later, a voice. A sad one.

***

Steve’s mother is dead. She’s been gone for six months and yet—

And yet now here she is, stretching her arms out of the fever-glare, smiling at Steve with a face so much softer than the one she’d been forced to wear in life. “Steve,” she says, and he folds himself close into her chest like he did when he was small, his ear pressed to her ribcage. It is silent, no heartbeat ringing from within, and he wants to pull away but now he’s frozen in fear, limbs in a bizzare rictus that he can’t escape from. “My love.”

There’s a name stuck in Steve’s throat, the same name he always calls, the name that means he won’t be alone when the person hears him, but he can’t remember it and he’s cold, cold…

It comes out on a scream. It hurts his throat, and breathing after it hurts his chest, and crying after it hurts his eyes.

***

“Stevie,” says Bucky, far above Steve, invisible behind the hot wet mist in Steve’s head. His voice is soft and echoing, fear turning it brittle and thin. “Stevie. Baby. You gotta come back.”

_ I want to,  _ Steve thinks, furious that he can’t move, that he can’t breathe, that he can’t see or speak or curl his hands into the shirt covering Bucky’s chest and pull him down close, pull him over Steve like a blanket and let his heat melt the frost deep in Steve’s bones.

There’s an ocean swallowing Steve up. He never learned to swim.

***

Bucky never prays, because he knows that if there is a God, He doesn’t listen to people like him. He knows that if there is a God, and God is who the Bible says He is, then Bucky doesn’t know if he wants to pray to Him anyway.

_ Ave Maria,  _ he thinks, and he prays now, prays like he hasn’t done since he was a kid.

“ _ Ave Maria _ ,” he whispers, and his voice quivers like heat in the July air over his clasped hands, and before Bucky’s bowed head, Steve’s sickly form is still. “ _ Mater Dei _ . Save him, and I won’t ask a thing of you again. Save him, and do whatever you want with me, because he’s an angel and I’m blessed enough just gettin’ to sit next to him.”

He has to stop out loud, because his voice has thinned down to something that’s ragged and worn, just a scrap of breath, but he keeps the prayer going on in his head. He is kneeling on the floor next to their bed, the same position he’s been in for what feels like eons; the wood is hard against his knees, painful, but Bucky doesn’t feel it. He takes one of Steve’s hands in his own, gone thin and limp in the weeks that he’s been ill, and he presses it to his forehead, Steve’s knuckles sharp and red-rough, his fingers pliant.

Steve’s cheeks are hollow and gaunt. The curves of his eye sockets are stained black and purple, sleep-bruised, and his hair is pressed in a tangle to his forehead and cheeks, matted with sweat. His lips are the color of cherries. Cracked.

Steve is bird bones and stuttered gasps, the sweat of fever and the low pulse of blood beneath his skin.

_ Stevie,  _ Bucky thinks, and realizes that somehow he is praying to the boy in front of him now, the boy who he loves more than the air he breathes. “What would I do without you?”

He doesn’t get an answer.

***

Steve’s eyes open, and the blue is so bright that for a moment Bucky thinks they both died, after all.

But then “Bucky,” Steve rasps, voice shredded from coughing, and the corners of his mouth are dry, and the burn of his irises peeking out from between his raw eyelids is like a supernova, a collapsing star, and Bucky takes the first pull of hopeful air that he has in a month.

“ _ Steve, _ ” Bucky whispers. He thinks he might be crying; he doesn’t take the time to figure that out. He helps navigate Steve up onto his pillows, and Steve feels so frail in Bucky’s hands that Bucky wants to crawl into bed with him, wrap him up in his arms, never let go. The slice of Steve’s collar bone, the planes of his bare chest, the knob of his spine—sharpness on Bucky’s palms, precious, vivid life.

Bucky holds Steve’s razor blade jaw in his hand and Steve tips his cheek into Bucky’s chest as he drinks from the glass Bucky holds against his lips. Steve’s flesh doesn’t scald Bucky’s anymore. Bucky thinks his fever is broken.

“Don’t go,” says Steve as Bucky carefully draws the cup away, and hell, he didn’t have to, because Bucky sits on the edge of the mattress and lets Steve fall against his chest, wraps his shaking arms around him and sets his chin on the top of Steve’s head, and thinks  _ thank you, thank you, thank you.  _


	23. Day 23: Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big. 
> 
> That’s the first thing he thinks. That’s the first thing Bucky thinks when he opens his eyes and someone is standing over him: big face big hands big eyes. Big shoulders. 
> 
> Steve. 
> 
> That’s the second thing he thinks. That’s the second thing Bucky thinks when he sees who is standing over him, when he sees that all of that bigness belongs to Steve, when he sees Steve’s eyes and ears and hands and mouth and hears his voice. 
> 
> Dead. 
> 
> That’s the third thing he thinks. That’s the third thing Bucky thinks when Steve’s big hands are warm and steady and wide on Bucky’s bruised ribs, when Steve’s eyes and voice and mouth and hair and skin and breath and chest are so close to Bucky in this circle of Hell he’s ended up in. Bucky must be dead; because there’s no other way Steve could be here, not looking strong like he’s always wanted to be but never could, not with eyes so soft and his voice full of hurt when he says Bucky’s name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Three, Rescue: One member of your OTP gets into trouble and the other rescues them! Could be from anything as small as a spider in the bathtub to as big as a kidnapper holding them for ransom!
> 
> *claps hands* I had to do it to 'em

_ Big.  _

That’s the first thing he thinks. That’s the first thing Bucky thinks when he opens his eyes and someone is standing over him: big face big hands big eyes. Big shoulders. 

_ Steve.  _

That’s the second thing he thinks. That’s the second thing Bucky thinks when he sees who is standing over him, when he sees that all of that bigness belongs to Steve, when he sees Steve’s eyes and ears and hands and mouth and hears his voice. 

_ Dead.  _

That’s the third thing he thinks. That’s the third thing Bucky thinks when Steve’s big hands are warm and steady and wide on Bucky’s bruised ribs, when Steve’s eyes and voice and mouth and hair and skin and breath and chest are so close to Bucky in this circle of Hell he’s ended up in. Bucky must be dead; because there’s no other way Steve could be here, not looking strong like he’s always wanted to be but never could, not with eyes so soft and his voice full of hurt when he says Bucky’s name. 

But “Steve,” Bucky says anyway, or whispers it, maybe, or maybe can’t make his voice say anything at all—and he lets those unreal hands pull him up. He lets them grip his shoulders, and he looks into Steve’s eyes with the closest thing to a smile that he can imagine. 

He must be dead. This must be it. Every day—a hundred times a day—but there aren’t any days here, just loops and loops of time, one endless night in this room they’ve put him in, and the cuts on the soles of his feet hurt and the bruises around his neck hurt and the needle marks in the curve of his elbows hurt—every day he imagines Steve: never coming to Bucky here, but Bucky coming home to him, climbing onto the hard mattress that they shared and winding around Steve’s little body and keeping both of them safe. Either that or his mind finally snapped, and this is gonna be the last picture his brain will show him before he fades out of his life for real. He can’t complain about that. 

He must be dead.  _ Dead.  _ Dead. Hopes he is. The alternative—that Steve is here, here full of that fucked-up idealism they shared before Bucky shipped out, thoughts of valiant rescues and shooting a gun at something that looked as evil as it was, instead of just looking like any of the other guy you shared a tent with—is too horrifying to think about. 

_ Dead.  _ Bucky’s gotta be. Else Steve is here in a place that Bucky could never, ever keep him safe in, try as hard as he might, instead of back home in a place where the worst thing he could face would be illness or hunger or something he’s been battling since he was born. 

“Steve,” Bucky says again, and lets Steve pull him up onto the cracked, bleeding soles of his feet, and feels the pound of their pulse between them in the link of their hands. 

 

***

_ Big.  _

That’s the first thing he thinks. That’s the first thing Bucky thinks minutes later—hours later days later years later—after he’s been poked at and prodded at by a million doctors whose cold metal tools made him silent-scream in terror, after he’s had to stand up straight and tall and look like every single piece of him is still intact, instead of crumbling away like a landslide through the hollow case of his ribs, after he’s met Agent Carter, and seen the way Steve’s big eyes follow the softness of her curves around every room. 

After Steve leads Bucky to his own room, and makes him sit on the shaky cot, and makes him lay down, and then sits himself on the floor because their bodies don’t fit together like puzzle pieces anymore, and Steve can’t curl up under Bucky’s arm, against Bucky’s chest, small and safe and protected and protecting.

_ Big.  _ Steve, back propped against the wall opposite Bucky. Shoulders as wide as a car, hunched up to his big ears, hands the size of dinner plates clasped around the mountain of his bent knees. 

Bucky can hear him breathing, and that’s big, too. Steady, not uneven and sharp like it used to be; measured, mellow gusts, a full pull in with working lungs, a full stream out with a chest that doesn’t stutter and hitch. 

“Steve,” Bucky says. He’s said lots of things since Steve rescued him and all the others so long ago, but this is the only thing that matters, this is the only word that feels real on his lips; the only shape that his mouth knows how to make. 

Bucky feels small. Bucky feels like they broke something inside of him back there when they had him on that table, back there when their tools cut parts of him, and their hands bruised others. They took what was strong from inside Bucky, and somebody gave it all to Steve—made him big and resilient and—and—and unfamiliar. And Bucky thinks,  _ they should have taken the rest.  _ And Bucky thinks— 

Steve, on his knees next to the cot, looming in close to Bucky’s face and then subsiding a little, forearms balanced on the edge of the mattress. There’s a divot between his eyebrows, a squint to the edge of his eyes; he only looks like that when he’s trying to read something small with his half-blind gaze, or when he’s worried. 

Bucky hates when Steve is worried. Bucky hates— 

“Buck.” And one of Steve’s big hands is on Bucky’s cheek, and one is helping him sit up on the edge of the cot, and then Bucky’s legs are curved around Steve’s hips as he leans forward, arms clinging to Steve’s collar and Steve’s neck, the two of them forehead-to-forehead in the tiny space. 

“Bucky,” Steve says again, soft like a secret, big arms wrapping around Bucky’s waist. Tight. Warm. “Are you…”

_ Are you alright.  _ That’s what he was going to say. 

He stopped, though. They both know the answer to that question. 

“You saved me,” says Bucky, hating how small his voice sounds in the muffled quiet of the room, hating the fact that he can’t tell if he’s shaking all over or if his heart just feels like it’s going numb. “I save you, Stevie.”

Steve is quiet for a long time, and Bucky closes his eyes and sinks into the way Steve is so much warmer than he ever used to be, warm enough that he probably won’t ever be cold again, and tries to force himself to be glad. 

Instead he’s just angry at whoever did this. Steve shouldn’t be here. Steve shouldn’t be here, in this place that is full of blood and violence and death. Steve should be small and safe, sitting on the couch sketching something with his slender hands. Steve shouldn’t have come. 

They shouldn’t have done this to him. 

And then Steve moves, pulling Bucky close, pulling him down until he’s sitting on Steve’s lap and his legs are crossed behind Steve’s hips, and his head is buried in the hollow of Steve’s collar bone, and what feels like Steve’s lips are in his hair. 

“We save each other,” Steve says. Matter-of-fact. Like it shouldn’t be questioned. “That’s what we do.”

_ Steve.  _

Bucky keeps his eyes closed. He doesn’t want to open them. He doesn’t want to see. 

His heart pounds through the soles of his feet and the palms of both hands, and Steve’s beats an even rhythm under Bucky’s ear. 


	24. Day 24: Tragedy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve’s arm is completely around Bucky’s shoulders now, and the cat has scampered off to who knows where—probably scared away by all of this fucking emotion. There are tears running unabashedly down Steve’s cheeks as the credits roll on the movie, and he can hear Bucky sniffling quietly from where his head rests beneath Steve’s chin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Four, Tragedy: Your OTP handling a tragedy. Did they lose a loved one? Was something stolen? How do they handle this? How do they help the other stay strong?
> 
> I don't even know

Steve flicks through his and Bucky’s Netflix account, only giving it half his attention as he scanned through titles. Bucky is seated on Steve’s left; his legs are crossed on the plush cushions of their couch, and the cat that Bucky adopted when it climbed through their window one day last month and never left is fitted in the space between Bucky’s knees like a purring pillow, pushing the top of her head up into Bucky’s cupped palm. 

It’s hard to concentrate on anything, when Bucky is so close, and so content. His hair is up in a pink fluffy thing that Bucky keeps telling Steve, in imperious tones, is a  _ scrunchie _ , but long strands have come loose around the back of his neck, and across his forehead; he’s wearing one of Steve’s biggest sweatshirts, a dark blue thing that swamps his torso and his limbs; his feet are bare, tucked up under his own knees; he’s smiling, something gentle and a little distant, not like he’s particularly happy about any one thing, but more like he’s happy enough about everything that his face shouldn’t be doing anything else. 

Bucky makes a low, cooing noise in the back of his throat as he rubs a finger down the bridge of the cat’s nose—and if, a year ago, you had told Steve that any of this would be happening to him right now, he would have laughed in your face. 

“That one,” says Bucky, who has glanced up at the television. Steve jumps a little, looking guiltily back at the screen; his gaze had wandered to Bucky, and he’d been flipping through the queue without any regard to what was zipping past. “It’s on your list,” Bucky adds. 

_ Up.  _ Steve thinks he remembers Clint scribbling that onto Steve’s list of twenty-first century movies he needed to watch. It looks charming, really, in the preview; an old man, a cute kid, a dog, lots of balloons. 

“Ok,” Steve says, easy agreement. He doesn’t really care what they watch—never does. It is enough to be able to sit so close to Bucky in a space that’s their own, and he’s always so busy looking at their friend that he never pays attention to the film, anyway. 

Steve clicks the title and then, through a sudden surge of bravery that takes him by surprise, scoots over a couple of inches on the cushions until his left shoulder is pressed completely against Bucky’s left. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bucky smile. 

***

An hour and a half later, Steve has never been more pissed off at Clint Barton.

Steve’s arm is completely around Bucky’s shoulders now, and the cat has scampered off to who knows where—probably scared away by all of this fucking  _ emotion.  _ There are tears running unabashedly down Steve’s cheeks as the credits roll on the movie, and he can hear Bucky sniffling quietly from where his head rests beneath Steve’s chin.

“What the  _ fuck, _ ” Bucky says, wiping aggressively at his eyes with his left hand. “I thought that was a  _ kid’s movie?” _

“It  _ is _ !” Steve says, wiping at his own eyes. 

Bucky makes a faint noise of alarm. “Are kids more resilient these days or are we just a couple of old saps?”

Steve laughs, and the noise is watery. “The second one, I think.”

“ _ Ugh, _ ” says Bucky. 

They’re quiet for a moment. Then:

“Let's watch  _Frozen_ again."

They do. 


	25. Day 25: Support

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do not break down this door, Steve’s mind is thinking, even though every muscle in his body strains against that command, and he has to physically stop himself from simply crashing forward through the wood. It wouldn’t take a lot of effort. He’s done it plenty of times, and for much less worthy causes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Five, Support: Your OTP supporting each other through tough times. What are these tough times? How do they comfort each other? Is one more prone to being upset than the other?

It’s three in the morning. 

Steve stands in the hallway, one hand on the cold metal of Bucky’s bedroom door knob, his forehead pressed to the smooth wood, eyes shut tight. He can hear Bucky on the other side of the door, hear the soft, muffled little sounds that he’s making in the back of his throat, like whimpers, or like he’s trying not to cry, and it absolutely breaks Steve’s heart. 

He’d come running out of his own room when he heard Bucky crying out a few minutes ago, immediately going to open Bucky’s door and comfort him—but the door is locked up tight, and there’s no other way into the room. 

Steve tells himself, very firmly, that he  _ will not  _ be breaking any doors down tonight. Bucky isn’t in any danger. It was just a nightmare. 

A nightmare. And he’s all alone in there, with nobody to help him. 

“It’s me, Buck” Steve says, keeping his voice raised but calm so that Bucky can hear it through the wall but won’t be alarmed by it. He knows how disorienting it can be waking from a nightmare—especially when you’ve only been cognitively aware of what century you’re in for about six months. “It’s Steve. I want to come in and be with you, if that’s ok.”

The noises on the other side of the door cut off abruptly; it is absolutely, silently still, and this is worse somehow.  

Bucky still shuts down sometimes, when confronted with big bouts of emotion. His face goes blank, as blank as his mind must be, and he can sit for hours completely immobile, staring without blinking at a place that Steve can never see. It takes constant effort for Steve to reach him again. 

It’s worth it, of course; Bucky will always be worth it. But Steve can’t  _ do that  _ if he can’t  _ get to him.  _

“Steve,” comes Bucky’s voice, shaking and hoarse, but present. Aware. 

And terrified. 

_ Do not break down this door, _ Steve’s mind is thinking, even though every muscle in his body strains against that command, and he has to physically stop himself from simply crashing forward through the wood. It wouldn’t take a lot of effort. He’s done it plenty of times, and for much less worthy causes. 

It would scare Bucky, though, Steve knows that. 

“That’s right.” Steve says. He presses his palm to the door, ears straining for any other noise that might drift his way. “I’m going to come in, Buck, if that’s something you want.”

Another silence, slightly shorter. Then: 

“Yes.”

Steve can’t help the way he goes warm all over at that, can’t help the way he still marvels a bit that Bucky, who trusts no one, trusts Steve. 

“Ok, I will,” Steve says, and tries to put a smile in his voice, tries to put a soothing touch in his voice. “Only your door is locked. Do you think you can open it for me?”

Silence, silence, so much silence that Steve’s heart rate elevates to a rhythm quick enough that the silence rings with it. Steve’s blood is rushing through his ears— 

The door opens, and he stumbles forward, catching himself with serum-enhanced reflexes on the doorframe. 

Bucky hasn’t waited for Steve to enter. Already, he’s climbing back into his bed, his movements choppy and quick enough that Steve can tell some of that dream-terror still lives in his bones. Steve shuts the door softly behind himself as he enters the room, steps lit only by the streetlight coming in through Bucky’s window, and comes to stand next to the bed.

Bucky sits, his back against the wall, his eyes haunted. The set of his chin is tremulous. 

Bending close, yet hesitating, Steve’s arms ache to reach out. “What can I—”

Bucky’s flesh hand clamps around Steve’s wrist, firm and insistent and hot. He won’t meet Steve’s eyes, but the intention in the slight tug of his movement is clear: he wants Steve close. 

Steve doesn’t have a problem with this.

The bed creaks beneath their shared weight as Steve climbs onto that mattress, but neither of them pay any mind. Bucky lets Steve maneuver him into shape; they end up horizontal on top of the sheets, face-to-face, Bucky’s head tucked under Steve’s chin, their arms and legs woven through each other, as close as they can conceivably be. 

He is stiff at first in Steve’s arms, every line of his body fraught with tension—but as the minutes wear on, he begins to relax, until only the occasional tremor runs through his exhausted muscles. Steve holds him the entire time, and Bucky holds back just as tightly, and they are silent, and outside Bucky’s window, the street lamp flickers. 

They aren’t going to talk about it tonight, Steve can tell. They might not even talk about it tomorrow. But it will come up someday. Over breakfast, while they’re folding laundry. Another night like this one, maybe, but hopefully not. 

For now, though, Steve will just hold him. Hold him, and he held back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> will I write anything other than bucky angst ever again? I'm beginning to think not


	26. Day 26: Finishing Each Other's Sentences

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s hot. The matinee has just gotten out, and Bucky takes a cut through the park on his way back home, rolling up his sleeves and whistling softly under his breath. His collar sticks to the back of his neck with sweat, scratchy under his hairline, and the fabric of his shirt clings to the small of his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Six, Finishing Each Other’s Sentences: Exactly what it sounds like. This could include your OTP doing other couple clichés, too. Bonus if they’re unaware of how cliché they’re being.
> 
> This chapter was co-written with me by the lovely and talented FinAmour! Go shower her with some love<3

It’s hot. The matinee has just gotten out, and Bucky takes a cut through the park on his way back home, rolling up his sleeves and whistling softly under his breath. His collar sticks to the back of his neck with sweat, scratchy under his hairline, and the fabric of his shirt clings to the small of his back.  

The glare of the sun is off of him here under this copse of trees, and it feels so good that he stops for a second, dropping to the ground. The grass is emerald, thick and a soft under his palms as he sits back and he closes his eyes. 

There isn’t really anyone around—especially not now, going on two o’clock, heat wafting up from the concrete in an almost solid wave—and it’s quiet here, the sounds of the street to his left muffled by leaves.  

Following the sappy romantic film he’d seen earlier, he’s feeling a bit sentimental; quite literally as though he ought to stop and smell the roses. And the lush grass is so inviting, almost beckoning him to sprawl out upon itl so he gives in and lies on his back, cradling his head in his hands. 

The only noises he hears are the rustling leaves and the singing of the birds; along with the chatting of joggers and other passersby going about their days. It’s surprisingly relaxing, being here. As he inhales, taking in the scent of freshly cut grass, relaxation sets in, and his mind begins to wander; daydreaming of the days and months he’d spent with Steve in summers past.

Now, they’re both grown, and he’s missing those times more than he’s willing to admit.

But as the world fades away around him, he doesn’t suppress the sweet visions dancing in his head, ridiculous though they may be; total romantic cliches, as though right out of a film. 

The romantic leads: Steve and himself. 

A warm summer rain: drops fat and heavy and spaced widely apart, falling even though the sun threatens to push through the thin film of clouds above their stoop. Steve: his blond hair plastered to his temples with the damp, bangs hanging in his eyes, little beads of moisture collecting on the ends of his starburst eyelashes, for once taller than Bucky as he stands on the step above him. His hands: slim and warm, one curled like a vine around the limp collar of Bucky’s shirt, one wrapped around Bucky’s wrist, fingers thin and pale and strong. His lips: rain-wet, heartbeat-hot, daydream-gentle, sliding against Bucky’s as he tips his chin up and smiles. 

The two of them, fingers entwined, strolling down a white, sandy beach, the waves crashing behind them as Steve pulls him in close. Bathing in cool Atlantic, Steve wrapping a protective arm around Bucky for warmth. Perched next to one another in the impossibly soft sand, the sunset painting golden and fuchsia hues on the horizon as the two of them laugh and make shapes and sandcastles. 

Out to dinner with friends; seated at a restaurant table, each with a beer in one hand while the other trickles chastely over one another’s arms, legs, shoulders, and backs. Gazing at each other with their hearts in their eyes; laughing straight from their gut like they’ve never laughed before. Murmuring sweet nothings into one another’s ears about how they’re soulmates and they can’t believe how lucky they are and that they’re sure they’ve met The One. Tiny kisses at one another’s fingertips; sharing appetizers and main courses and finishing one another’s sentences like all of the most insufferable couples do.

But it’s him, and it’s Steve, and he doesn’t feel insufferable for a second; and insufferable though it may be, it doesn’t matter, because he’s happy. 

It doesn’t matter, because it’s not real. 

The visions fade away like fog on a mirror, slipping from Bucky’s mind before he can cement them into his memory. He keeps his eyes shut, though, not quite willing to take that last step into reality. 

He just needs a few more seconds with the darkness behind his eyelids. 

It’s probably best that he stopped thinking about it—no. It  _ is _ best. It’s hard enough to come home sometimes, and see Steve sitting on their couch with the lamplight highlighting the curve of his cheek and the bridge of his nose, and not be able to do or say or feel what Bucky wants to feel. It’ll be even harder after getting so wrapped up in thoughts like these. 

There are footsteps somewhere to Bucky’s left, shoes rustling softly through the plush grass near Bucky’s head. He doesn’t move. Better that whoever it is thinks he’s lying here asleep, and doesn’t try to talk to him. 

The footsteps stop, though, instead of fading away; muscles going tense, Bucky listens carefully, and almost jumps when he realizes that the person is sitting down next to him. 

His eyes slide open. 

Oh.

Steve.

Steve is smiling at him, just a little bit, and he’s beautiful against the vivid backdrop of the sky—a summer blue, a blue that matches his eyes. 

“Steve,” Bucky says quietly, involuntary; his body relaxed immediately upon realizing who it is, sinking back down into the grass, and he can feel himself smiling lazily up at his friend. 

Steve hums softly at him. He reaches down with one hand, and lets his fingertips trail very softly through Bucky’s hair. 

Bucky’s eyes drop closed again at the sensation, lips parting slightly, hands going slack where they rest against his stomach. Steve’s fingers brush tiny circles against Bucky’s scalp, slipping through strands of hair easily, and every slight movement sends a new round of shivers down Bucky’s spine. 

“Hey,” Bucky says, breathless, eyes still shut. He stretches one hand out blindly and rests it against Steve’s knobby knee; Steve covers Bucky’s hand with his own. 

Steve laughs under his breath, weaving their fingers together and squeezing with the faintest of pressures. “Thought I might find you here,” he murmurs. “I know the movie just ended, and the way you tend to get caught up in the beautiful green grass on days like these—” His voice is fond. “Glad I was right.”

Bucky still doesn’t want to open his eyes again. He’s too afraid. Afraid that this is all a fantasy, too. That Steve’s fingers gliding over his knuckles are a figment of his imagination; that the sensation of his small body lying down next to his own, perfectly aligned, is simply a dream, and if his eyes open, it’ll disappear. 

But he can feel Steve’s breath on his cheek; hear his breath beside him, and it feels and sounds so, so real. 

As a warm, strong hand takes his, and they wrap their fingers together, Bucky smiles. He wants to savor the moment just like this; wants to treasure the sound and the touch and the scent. So he keeps his eyes screwed up tight as Steve presses up against him, and he drifts off to sleep in the bed of grass.


	27. Day 27: Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s Bucky’s birthday—or, well, technically yesterday was, Bucky realizes, glancing at the clock above the television and seeing that it’s well past midnight—and they have been doing exactly what Bucky has wanted all day. Bucky slept in as per usual, but Steve actually stayed with him, waiting until nearly ten thirty to wake Bucky up with a long, slow kiss, and forgoing his run entirely; Steve made him pancakes and eggs and bacon, and hadn’t even minded when Bucky let them go while he kissed Steve by the stove—and then he’d reheated them after that kiss had turned into a longer, slower fuck in the living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Seven, Memories: Your OTP reminiscing about how far they’ve come. They could be looking through photo albums or just cuddling and talking.

Bucky—his toes wedged under the solid mass of Steve’s thigh, his back propped against the arm of the couch—curls his fingers around the cup of tea he’s drinking, and watches Steve’s profile as the man nods in and out of a nap. 

It’s Bucky’s birthday—or, well, technically yesterday was, Bucky realizes, glancing at the clock above the television and seeing that it’s well past midnight—and they have been doing exactly what Bucky has wanted all day. Bucky slept in as per usual, but Steve actually stayed with him, waiting until nearly ten thirty to wake Bucky up with a long, slow kiss, and forgoing his run entirely; Steve made him pancakes and eggs and bacon, and hadn’t even minded when Bucky let them go while he kissed Steve by the stove—and then he’d reheated them after that kiss had turned into a longer, slower fuck in the living room.

They whole day has been like that. Good. Great. Perfect.

Steve does that every year. Not these same things, but something; something special, something just for Bucky. Even when they were kids and Steve hardly had a dime to his name, he would find some way to make Bucky’s day wonderful.

This was the first year Bucky got Steve for his birthday, though. Steve, in his entirety. To touch. To love.

“Hey,” Bucky says softly, nudging at Steve until he looks over at Bucky, dazed little half-smile on his lips. “I love you, Stevie.”

Steve takes the mug out of Steve’s hands, sets it in the coffee table. Then he stretches out between Bucky’s legs, forehead resting against Bucky’s neck, arms around his waist. Bucky closes his eyes.

“Happy birthday, Buck.” 


	28. Day 28: The Power of Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky makes a high, thin noise in the back of his throat, pressing into Steve’s hips with his thighs, stroking Steve’s flushed cheeks with the back of his hand. He sags back against the counter, kissing growing messier with every word Steve murmurs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Eight, The Power of Two: Your OTP accomplishing a goal that neither of them would’ve been capable of doing alone. The name of this prompt can be changed if you’re using an OT3 or more for this challenge.
> 
> If you know 40s Bucky had a praise kink clap your hands👏🏻👏🏻

It’s evening, and the streetlight outside the window flickers yellow in through the pale curtains like the flash of a camera. Bucky is home, and Steve is glad. He sits at the table across from Steve, dark head bent as he eats the stew Steve made them and reads through the stupid comic strip Steve sketched up while he was bored out of his mind working the newspaper stand this morning. Sometimes, he will smile: mouth wide, the slide of his lips easy, the roundness of his cheeks pushing up. 

Steve watches him, intent. He likes the angle of Bucky’s neck; likes the gentle slope of his spine; likes his long fingers, tracing a hairsbreadth above the paper as he reads along so as not to smudge the graphite lines. Likes that round and rosy smile.

He can watch, right here, right now. He can lean his chin in his hand, tangle his legs with Bucky’s under the table, let his eyes rake over and over every inch of Bucky, and not have to worry that it looks like what it means.

Bucky raises his head: eyes soft, boyish amusement hanging in the corners of his mouth. He rests his legs against Steve’s, and cheap material of their trousers makes a scratching noise in the silence.

“This is real good, Stevie,” he says. His hair is coming loose from where he keeps it slicked back all day, falling across his forehead, and it makes Steve’s breath stop in his chest. “You oughta call up the paper, see if you can get published in there.”

“Aw, shut up,” Steve says, but he knows he’s smiling, and he knows Bucky likes it.

***

They clean up together. Bucky washes the dishes and Steve dries them; they bump elbows sometimes, Steve’s shoulder nudges Bucky’s arm. They smile into the dishes, cutting glances at each other from the corner of their eyes.  

Bucky knocks into Steve playfully with his hip, and the plate Steve is holding—still slippery with water—nearly falls from his fingers.

“Hey watch it, jerk.” Steve scowls to hide his smile, glaring up at Bucky with an obstinate tilt to his chin.

Bucky plucks the plate out of Steve’s hold and sets it on the counter. Then he takes both of Steve’s hands in his own damp ones, pressing them to his cheek as he blinks down at Steve with an exaggeratedly contrite pout.

“‘M sorry, Stevie,” says Bucky, and batts those long eyelashes, and shoves out his pink lower lip. He’s pretty. He’s a little shit. “Please forgive me.”

“Hmm,” Steve says, brow furrowed, making a big deal of thinking on it. He doesn’t miss the way Bucky’s eyes flicker down to his mouth and then back up—fast, like he thinks Steve won’t catch him. Steve catches him. “I dunno, Bucky,” he murmurs, but he leans forward and catches the side of Bucky’s neck with one palm, pulling him forward until their mouths are barely an inch apart.

Bucky goes still beneath his touch.

This is good. This is the part that Steve likes.

He hovers for a few seconds more, just breathing, waits and waits and waits until Bucky gets out a strangled “Steve—“: and then he bites Bucky’s bottom lip, soft, hands coming up to hold Bucky’s waist as he sways on his feet.

“You sorry?” Steve asks him in a low voice, kissing the place where his teeth had been, soothing it over with a flick of his tongue. Bucky makes a tiny sound and grips the back of Steve’s shirt with both fists like he’s grabbing a lifeline.

“Yeah,” Bucky whispers, tugging weakly at Steve, breath coming out on a quiver as Steve presses kisses to the corner of his mouth, the hinge of his jaw. “Stevie…”

“Say it.” Steve breathes the command into the hollow of Bucky’s throat, watching the pale gold spread of his skin erupt into goosebumps, kissing that spot with his heart in his mouth. “Say it, baby.”

“Sorry— _ oh _ —I’m sorry.”

Steve slides his palm around Bucky’s waist to the small of his back, runs his fingers up Bucky’s spine, weaves his fingers through Bucky’s hair as he cups the back of his head. “Good,” Steve says, “you’re so good, Buck,” he says, and Bucky’s head falls back on his shoulders as Steve smears a kiss up along the tensions of his neck, and across the ridge of his jaw.

Gripping Bucky’s hip, Steve bears him back until he comes up against the counter, breath sharp, legs spread wide. Steve leans up against him, hips-to-hips, cradled in the V of Bucky’s thighs as he tugs Bucky’s  head into the right angle and finally slots their mouths together for a deep, wet kiss.

“Beautiful,” Steve murmurs between kisses, tugging Bucky’s shirt out of his trousers and getting a hand on the warm skin spread thin over his hipbone, fingers digging lightly into flesh, “God, Bucky—you’re perfect, gorgeous.”

Bucky makes a high, thin noise in the back of his throat, pressing into Steve’s hips with his thighs, stroking Steve’s flushed cheeks with the back of his hand. He sags back against the counter, kissing growing messier with every word Steve murmurs.

“Love you,” Bucky gasps, and his words taste so sweet on Steve’s tongue, and Steve aches with it. “I love you so much Steve, sweetheart I—“

He stops when Steve kisses him again, holding Steve tight against his chest.

“I love you too,” Steve whispers, and kisses him and kisses him and kisses him as the sun goes down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...kissing. Kissing is the thing that neither of them could have done alone. It IS.


	29. Day 29: "I Love You"s

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky had worried that maybe Steve didn’t want to see him and talk to him at the same time, that Steve didn’t want to look at Bucky—but now, seeing Steve’s face over this little screen, all of Bucky’s lingering fears about that fade into the background of his racing thoughts. 
> 
> Steve is beaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Twenty-Nine, “I love you”s: Your OTP saying they love each other for the first time. When was this? What context was it in? What did it feel like for them?
> 
> I posted two chapters yesterday, so make sure to check the second one out in case you missed it!

In a hut in a field, Bucky sits cross-legged atop his bed, watching the screen on his laptop. 

He is more nervous than he should be. 

Shuri set this up for him. This thing called  _ Skype.  _ She said that Steve had it on his laptop, too, that it was like a phone, only flat on a screen, and face-to-face, and then she kept talking and kept talking as her fingers flew over the screen and Bucky tuned her out. 

He likes Shuri a whole lot, because she reminds him of those flashes that appear in his memory of a girl that was younger than him, bright-faced and smart, a girl that always appears with the word  _ sister,  _ or  _ Becca _ ringing in his mind _ — _ but she goes so fast. Sometimes, Bucky’s freshly-thawed brain can barely keep up with her. 

She offered to stay and help him navigate the call when—if—Steve picked up, but Bucky politely asked her not to. He hasn’t seen Steve in such a long time; he wants to be alone when he gets this fresh picture of Steve, wants to be able to soak him in all by himself. 

The screen goes dark for half a second, and then flashes to an image, and Bucky is very still. 

Steve knew that Bucky was calling, of course. Bucky has been out of cryo for about a month now, and they’ve been calling each other on the cellphone as many times as possible, and texting nearly every day. They’d set this up two days ago, on one of those calls where Shuri was listening in over speakerphone on Bucky’s side and Natasha on Steve’s, and the two women had interjected to ask why they hadn’t Skyped yet. 

Bucky’s answer was easy: he didn’t know what the hell Skype was. Steve hadn’t said anything. 

Bucky had worried that maybe Steve didn’t  _ want _ to see him and talk to him at the same time, that Steve didn’t  _ want _ to look at Bucky—but now, seeing Steve’s face over this little screen, all of Bucky’s lingering fears about that fade into the background of his racing thoughts. 

Steve is  _ beaming.  _

And Steve’s smile—oh, it has always been one of Bucky’s favorite things. Difficult to get out of him, maybe, rare like a rainbow is rare, but so beautiful that every time Bucky sees it it takes his breath away. 

It’s been about seventy years since Bucky has seen this one. This  _ real  _ one; not Steve’s Captain America smile that he wears before the public, and not the tiny, sad smile he had always looked at Bucky with before he went back into cryo. 

No. No, this smile takes up his whole face with how wide it’s spread, makes his eyes squint beneath laugh lines, dazzles Bucky and blinds Bucky and makes his heart sway on a thin silver cord. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, soft and special, round like the smile he’s wearing is shaping the word into something  _ more.  _ “How are you?”

Bucky leans back against the pillows buffering his headboard, and covers the expanse of his own smile with one hand. Even so, it spills out hugely from the edges. 

He stares at Steve. Stares and stares, and Steve lets him stare back, and Bucky thinks he remembers that Steve always has, even when they were kids. 

Steve has a beard now. It looks good. Better than good. His hair is longer than it has ever been. 

He looks nothing like Captain America, and happier than Bucky can remember him being in lifetimes. 

“Good,” Bucky says softly. It’s true.  _ He _ is happy too, here in Wakanda where he is free to do whatever he wishes, and he never has to harm another living soul. He has goats. He has at  _ least _ two friends. The sun is warm on his skin, and Steve is never more than a phone call away—which isn’t as close as Bucky would like, yet closer than he ever dreamed he’d get. “Shuri gave me a laptop.”

Steve, smiling ( _ smiling _ ) smiling, rests his chin in his hand. He’s sitting at a table, what looks like a window behind him, although Bucky doesn’t get more than an impression of sunlight turning the tips of his hair gold, and he is wearing a soft, white t-shirt that hugs the slope of his broad shoulders. Bucky wants to lean through the screen and press his cheek to the honey-colored beard upon Steve’s, to feel the softness of that t-shirt spread over his chest. To listen to Steve’s heartbeat, strong and real. 

“Nice of her,” Steve remarks. 

“Mmm,” says Bucky. He settles a little further into his pillows, and realizes, as he does it, that he’s more relaxed in this moment than he has been since breaking from his programming. He could sleep now, right now, Steve’s kind eyes on him, Steve’s safe presence across from him, and not dream. 

They just look at each other for a moment, eyes soft and heavy-lidded. Behind Steve, dust motes dance in the syrupy golden light of late afternoon, drifting around him making his edges a bit blurred, and Bucky lets his own smile go completely free. 

“Steve,” he says, after some of that liquid time has passed, after their gazes have settled and locked against each other like magnets coming together. This sentence is coming from somewhere deep inside of Bucky, a place that he doesn’t regulate, but that he understands. Understands more deeply than he does anything else. “Stevie. You know I love you, right?”

The hand Steve is resting against scratches lightly at his beard; his soft pink lips part; the surface of his blue, blue eyes glistens. “Yeah, Buck,” he murmurs. A waver in his tone, a wobble: he  _ didn’t _ know, not for sure. Or he knew, but not in  _ this _ way. Bucky wants, so badly Bucky wants, for Steve to be next to him in this bed. “And Bucky. I love you too. So much.”

“I know,” Bucky says quietly, surprised to realize that he  _ does.  _ That is one thing that he’s never really doubted. That Steve Rogers loves him. Even if he didn’t know, at first, that it was the same way Bucky loved Steve. “I’ve known ever since we were kids. I didn’t know how much, though. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that it was as much as I love you.”

Steve laughs, watery, and ducks his head. He covers his eyes with his hand. 

Bucky traces over Steve’s cheek with one fingertip, wishing so much for Steve to be here that he is almost surprised to feel smooth glass rather than Steve’s warm skin. 

When Steve looks at him again, the blue of his irises is vivid against the red rimming his eyes. 

“Can I come to you?” Steve asks, smiling and smiling and  _ smiling _ at Bucky. Bucky’s heart is tattooing words on the back of his ribcage. “Can I come to Wakanda and see you?”

“Yes,” Bucky says immediately. He leaves his hand there on the screen. Slowly, Steve reaches out, and presses his own hand there, too. Bucky smiles. “Yes.”


	30. Day 30: Different Ways of Saying "I Love You"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes Bucky says something so wonderful, so very Bucky, that Steve’s shitty heart skips a few more beats. This is one of those times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Thirty, Different Ways of Saying “I love you”: What sorts of things does your OTP say and do for each other to show that they love each other? How do they indirectly show their love? 
> 
> TW: canon-typical levels of violence 
> 
> well, here you have it, folks. this has been a WONDERFUL month, and I've enjoyed every minute of writing for you all! thank you so much for every single kudos and comment--getting one of those emails in my inbox absolutely makes my day. you all are the greatest, and I couldn't have done it without you<3

_ 1928 _

Steve is ten, and it’s his birthday. 

Bucky, already a head taller than Steve and shooting up faster every day, stands on quiet feet, and grins down at him. They two of them are sleeping in Steve’s bedroom, stretched out on Steve’s Ma’s couch cushions, free of blankets in the thick July heat. Steve’s had such a good day today; the glint to Bucky’s eye tells him that it’s about to get better.

Bucky doesn’t tell Steve to follow him, but as he extends his hand to Steve and pulls him to his feet, he doesn’t have to. Steve would follow him anywhere. 

They cross the room silently, feeling their way over creaky floorboards by the streetlight that shines in through the window without making a noise, even though Sarah is working a late shift at the hospital and there’s no way she could possibly catch them out at this hour. There is anticipation thrilling in Steve’s chest as Bucky cracks the window, opening it halfway, and slings his leg over the sill; it crawls up his throat and turns into a smile as Bucky hoists himself out and onto the roof, and pulls Steve out by the hand after him. 

The flat metal roof is still hot from the day’s sun, but they don’t mind. The two boys lean back against the outside wall, sun-baked bricks hot through their thin cotton shirts. Bucky kicks his feet, dangling them over the edge of the roof, so Steve does, too; Bucky crosses his hands over his stomach, so Steve does, too; Bucky tips head back and smiles at the sky, so Steve watches him, and that thrill gains power. 

“Bucky—” Steve starts, but Bucky grabs Steve’s hand again, flashing him a gap-toothed, star-bright grin, and Steve settles. 

“Wait, Stevie,” Bucky says, still whispering.  

Steve can wait. Bucky wants him to wait, so he can wait.  

It doesn’t take long. Soon, colors explode above the skyline in bright streams of fire: streaming red, exuberant blue, bright, poignant flashes of green. Steve sucks in a surprised gasp and the breath sticks there as he leans forward, unintentionally gripping Bucky’s hand very hard in his own. 

He sits like that for the whole display, unsure of how much time passes. 

When the last of the fireworks has trailed away in a puff of smoke against the moon, Steve sits back, and realizes that there’s a stretched-tight smile on his face. He turns to Bucky, and Bucky is smiling, too. 

“Happy birthday, Steve,” Bucky whispers. 

They climb back in through the window, hands held tight. 

***

_ 1933 _

Steve sits cross-legged on his bed, sketchbook balanced on his thighs, and shifts a little to get comfortable as he draws. 

It’s mid-afternoon, and the light coming in through the window across the room is a perfect, tempered gold—the kind of light that almost makes Steve forget he has to squint to see anything clearly. It makes the thin paper he’s sketching on look heavier and creamier than it really is, and it shines down on the chipped floorboards, taking away their battered look. 

Bucky is stretched out on the bed next to Steve, his torso and shoulders and head on the mattress, his long legs at a right angle to the rest of his body, leaning up against the wall. His eyes are closed: his dark lashes cast pointy shadows on the tops of his cheeks, and his mouth and chin are comfortably soft and relaxed. 

He seems to soak the light in, Steve thinks. It doesn’t make him look any better, because he doesn’t need it to. 

“All the blood is gonna run outta your legs and into your head and make you stupider if you don’t quite that,” Steve says, tapping Bucky’s forehead with the eraser end of his pencil. 

Bucky doesn’t open his eyes. He smiles. “Don’t need to be smart when I got you around, Stevie,” he says, and his voice is so sweet, that same beguiling tone that makes every girl in their neighborhood swoon after him, and goes a long way towards making Steve do the same. It pisses Steve off, but there’s nothin’ he can do about it. He’s tried. “You’ve got plenty of brains for the both of us.”

“Huh,” says Steve, taking a break from shading the bow of Bucky’s lips in his drawing to gaze down at the real Bucky, smiling at him even though he can’t see. “And what’ll you do when I’m not around, Buck? Haven’t thought of that, now have you?”

“Aw, Steve, that’s easy,” Bucky scoffs, blinking up at Steve with eyes that are fractured with the sunlight. Steve heard a girl talking about Bucky Barnes’ eyes the other day on the way home from school like they were the prettiest things she’d ever seen. He thinks he can understand why. “I’ll just make sure we’re together forever. How’s that sound?”

Sometimes Bucky says something so wonderful, so very  _ Bucky, _ that Steve’s shitty heart skips a few more beats. This is one of those times. 

“Sounds real good, Buck,” he says finally, after Bucky’s eyes have drifted closed again, and his chest is rising slowly and steadily with an even rhythm. “Sounds real good to me.”

***

_ 1938 _

Steve swings his fist hard, but the pain throbbing across the surface of his knuckles is already so vivid that he can’t actually tell if he makes contact or not. The taste of blood is metallic and slick across the surface of his teeth; his left eye is swollen mostly closed, and there must be a cut somewhere around his hairline because his bangs hang down into his face, matted with a mixture of sweat and blood. His ankle screams. There is a legion of bruises across his ribs. 

They’ve knocked him down twice already, but he’s come up swinging both times. 

But now: Steve can’t see through the film of pain across his eyes. But now: Steve can’t make the crushed-inward feel of his ribs expand into a breath. But now— 

There are three of them, three men with broken teeth and dead eyes, three men who had been following a girl and calling terrible things to the hem of her dress, three men who are so much bigger than Steve. Bullies, is what they are. Cowards. They close in on Steve in one unit, push him and push him and push him in until he’s on his knees again, and the back of his skull cracks against the brick face of his apartment building. 

His vision shuts completely off, plunging his world into a wobbly well of darkness even though his eyes are open as wide as they can possibly be anymore, and his good ear loses hearing too, nothing but a dull roar filling his head, like the swell of the ocean. His breath burns. 

Everything clicks back into place with a sickening crack that brings bile, burning, to the base of Steve’s throat—and the three blurry shapes before him are four, now, joined by someone else who is fighting fast and hard and vicious— 

A grunt, a crunch: one man falls, scarlet bursting out of his nose, going down with a scream, and this fourth person turns and elbows a second man in the throat, then kicks him in the kneecaps, then punches him in the eye as he’s halfway to the dirty ground. 

“Bucky,” Steve says—or hopes he does, anyway He’s not sure how many parts of his body work right anymore, he’s not sure if that’s his voice coming out of him or if his voice has been beaten into a thin, tattered ribbon of sound, broken. He struggles to stand, but every time he does his body simmers with white hot pain. His legs can’t straighten beneath him.

Steve falls back into the wall, bracing himself with fingertips dug into the grit that lines the edges of this alley, and as his hand scrabbles along the ground, he sees the bright crimson trail of blood that his skin leaves behind. 

“Bucky,” Steve tries again. He can half-see the third man turning on his heel and sprinting out of the alley as Bucky kicks and kicks and the two men that are down, kicks and kicks as the third man’s footsteps fade into the distance and the other two men’s agonized groans fade from their throats. 

Bucky needs to stop. Steve needs to stop him. 

With one last heave of strength, Steve lurches himself to his feet.  _ “Bucky.” _

Bucky wrenches his attention away from the men on the ground and stumbles over them towards Steve, and all Steve sees is the pale smudge of his face, the red line of his mouth, the huge pools of his eyes, the blood dripping from his fists and smudged across his cheek. 

He reaches Steve just as his knees give way beneath him again, just as Steve turns his head in time to hurl into the tiny clump of dead weeds and shattered glass growing out of a crack in the cement. Blood and bile drips from his chin; Bucky catches him close and holds him against his chest anyway. 

Steve knows Bucky is saying something, can feel the vibration of his words against every place that they touch, but his brain is swimming in his skull and he can’t pick out the sentences from the constellations of stars that map his brain. He just knows that Bucky is crying, and he knows that it’s because of him, and he knows that he hates it.

“Bucky,” Steve mumbles into his neck, dimly aware of the fact that they’ve begun to move out of they alley, that they are moving and yet his feet no longer touch the ground. “You were gonna kill them.”

“They were gonna kill  _ you, _ ” Bucky hisses, voice sharp. His hold tightens around Steve, and it hurts like fuckin’ hell, but Steve isn’t going to say anything. He’s got an arm around Steve’s shoulders and one beneath his knees, and he presses his lips to Steve’s forehead, even though it’s bloody and drenched with sticky-cold sweat. Steve’s heart bruises his ribcage from the inside out. 

***

_ 1944 _

Sometimes, late at night when he can’t help it, Bucky screams. 

It’s one of the reasons that Steve always makes sure they share a tent. He knows Bucky hates the fact that Steve ever hears him, knows that Bucky can barely handle the person who knows him best knowing this thing about him—that he is terrified. That he hides it during the day, but something happened to him that comes out at night when his body lets his brain have full reign, and it shatters him. 

Bucky would hate for any of the other men to know about this (even though, Steve thinks, there is no way they can’t hear this all the way across camp) even more than he hates for Steve, his best friend, to know about this. He always wants to be so strong. 

He’s screaming now.  

It’s as if the sounds are being ripped right out of him, out of some deep, rooted down place that Steve could never dream of accessing. Bucky screams like he’s being broken in two, screams like it’s tearing the surface of his throat raw, and Steve fights his way out of his own bedroll to get to him. 

“Bucky,” he says, not bothering to keep his voice down but bothering very much to keep it  _ calm _ , trying so hard to break through whatever incorporeal layer of torture is hanging over Bucky’s mind right now. “Bucky. Bucky, wake up, it’s Steve.”

Bucky’s face is paler than the midwinter sky, swollen with snow clouds; there’s a sheen of sweat across his forehead, the sick kind, the kind that matches the pits beneath his eyes. 

He wakes up violently, eyes straining open, mouth shaped around a ragged gasp—and when his pupils focus and he sees that it’s Steve, he sits right up and into Steve’s arms. 

Bucky fits perfect against Steve’s chest now, his head in the crook of Steve’s neck, his soft, precious middle safe in the circle of Steve’s arms. Steve screws his eyes shut and presses Bucky against him, gasping a little as Bucky burrows closer, deep into Steve’s bones. Bucky is  _ only _ gasping—it’s impossible for him to breathe normally for hours after one of these nightmares. Steve can feel Bucky’s heart rate racing against him. 

He feels small and scared in Steve’s hold. Neither of them cry, but both of them want to.

***

_ 2014 _

Bucky gets away. Steve lives.

It’s not a coincidence. 

Steve knows. 

***

Steve makes the announcement on public television as soon as he is out of the hospital: he’s retiring. He hands the shield over to Sam because Sam wants it and Sam deserves it and Sam is  _ meant _ for it. 

And then Steve finds an apartment in Brooklyn as close to their old place as he can get, and he waits. 

It doesn’t take long, all things considered. Just under three months pass—three months of catching glimpses of Bucky watching him through the window of the abandoned building across the street, three months of hoping against hope that he’s doing the right thing—before Steve comes home from shopping one day to find Bucky sitting on his couch, knees pulled up to his chest, seven knives fanned out over the coffee table, his stardust eyes wide beneath the curtain of his hair. 

“Bucky,” Steve says, and this time when he says it Bucky lifts his chin and looks at Steve with recognition, this time when he says it Bucky meets Steve’s eyes and he  _ smiles. _

Smiles, tiny and soft, quiet and perfect. 

Bucky doesn’t move away when Steve comes closer. “Steve,” he says, and Steve could cry. “I decided to come home.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come find me on twitter @unicornpoe and we can scream together! 
> 
> make sure to subscribe to me as an author here on ao3 if you want to be notified whenever I post a pic! I'm in the middle of posting a long WIP, I have another one currently over halfway finished on my laptop, and I have about 897987 more that I'm planning on writing, so you'll never be bored lol.
> 
> thanks again guys. toodles.


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